online rejection

because i am new in my town and through a series of unfortunate events ended up homeschooling my son, i haven't made a lot of friends. well, i tell myself those are the reasons for my lack of friends. and as a pathetic attempt to remedy this, i decided to join an online but local homeschooling group. as i perused the posts from other women in my area unfortunate enough to homeschool, i realized why i have such difficulty finding friends. i had ruled out several of the group members as potential friends based solely on their children's names. i know, this seems harsh. but seriously, i don't see my son mac getting together to obsess over video games with aspen and cedar. similarly, i ruled out several members based solely on their usernames, including cooksfromscratch, myhighercalling, birthchic (this one just grossed me out a little) and faith41jesus. i rejected another member because she was selling a book called "baking with whole grains," which she described as emphasizing "a biblical creation perspective." seriously? a book on baking with whole grains managed to squeeze in some biblical creation? i almost bought the book from her just to see how one might accomplish such a daunting writing task. but this is the problem with trying to find friends online - you don't see the whole package. in person, despite baking with whole grains, this person may actually dislike her kids, drink too much, and possess all of the other qualities i am looking for in a friend. i mean, afterall, she is selling the book. or maybe she bought the book to torture her children by feeding them whole grains and simultaneously emphasizing biblical creation. or maybe the book was a gift from a friend she met online, perhaps faith41jesus. so as i went down the list of group members, rejecting them one-by-one for their virtual flaws, i realized, i need to get out more. i am much more confident in my ability to reject people in person.