Unexpected Marriage I always thought that the social media was not an effective intermediary that contributed to make people had serious and realistic relationships. But this perspective completely changed when I met accidently and without any prior notice a girl on Facebook who was going to become my current wife. I never thought that one day I was going to meet someone in the virtual world and we going to dream about our future life and we going to plan to make a family. That was like tales that I read when I was a child. But a tale might convert to a real story when we believed our sincere feelings. That happened more than two years ago when I lived by myself in United States away from any real sensations that helped me to face the bitterness of alienation and the challenge of the everyday life.
My relationship with social media before I came to United States was not a very close relationship. Actually, I had a Facebook account for years. I was not interested to make a lot of new friends, to chat with them, and to share them my experiences and my interests. I even did not check my page regularly. I always believed that the social relationship was a part of real life. I liked to contact people in real world, to talk to human beings of flesh and bones. My desire of social communication was not satisfied when I talked to a virtual personage relating with me by an electronic device. I always amazed by those people who I saw them in cyber club sitting for long hours in front of computers. They did nothing just talking and chatting with others. It was true that they had their reasons behind that, as some of them would meet girls especially the European or American ones who were going to give them a better life in the western countries. The others used the social media just to communicate socially with friends or family members. But I always thought that these reasons did not deserve from us all this sacrifice of time and effort and money. After I came to United States, the using of the social media began sneaking to my life that filled with loneliness. When I reached to Chicago, I stayed with a friend of mine who welcomed me in his apartment. He was working everyday while I remained in home alone. I did nothing just spend time watching TV and surfing in Internet. With the passage of time, I missed my family and my friends and everything that belonged to my country. This longing increased day after day until I started looking for a way that kept me constantly in touch of them. I began to enter to social networking websites as Facebook and to talk to them and to add new friends in my friends’ list. This let me feel confortable and coexist somewhat with the hardship of alienation. After three months in this situation, I got a night shift job as a valet attendant in a hotel that was another outlet helping me to forget a little of my psychological and emotional sufferance. The days passed and even the months nothing took place until I found my lost love on Facebook. My life continued between the routine of work and home. One day while I checked my Facebook account as I did every now and then, and I took a look on my friends’ profiles and my friends’ friends who were suggested automatically on my page, a name caught suddenly my attention. It was a familiar name that already passed through my mind. I added it to my friends list and I awaited the approval to my request. After a few days, as I logged in my Facebook account, I found that person online. Out of curiosity, I sent him an instant message to say Hi. The answer was very quick; he said Hi. I did not know him because he prevented the public from access to his personal information. He was for me an unidentified person. After we chatted a short while, I discovered that that person was a female and she knew me. As a matter of fact, a number of questions and inquires quickly raced to my mind about her identity, and if she was a one of my friends or my ex-colleagues. She told