Lindsey Reviews : The Big Event (Part #1) by Anne John- Ligali

The Big Event

Online Friendships

Short Story – Part 1

Anne John- Ligali

November 2017

Constance Jeffries is a romantic novelist, in her mid-thirties and the central character in this story.  The story-line primarily takes place in The Dorchester Hotel, in London.  The reader learns that Constance is en-route to meet up with a group of her “virtual” friends: people who she has engaged with frequently on social media for several years.  Armed with gifts for her cyber buddies, she is tremendously excited to finally meet them in the flesh.  Yet, as she encounters each of them in person, Constance has an epiphany: in that as engages with each them, she finds a huge difference in the people she meets in the flesh to the relationships she thought she had formed online. As the story comes to a close, Constance recognises that sometimes how we perceive people online is not necessarily a true reflection of how they are in real life…

This was a really thought-provoking story.  Although a short story, nevertheless, the plot raised some really interesting issues: namely how the advance of social media has impacted on people’s relationships and interactions.  Constance learns that meeting her so called friends face to face is a very different experience to how she interrelates with them online: how people can manipulate their platforms on social media and detach themselves from the real world.  The narrative also highlighted how with the advent of mobile phones and the social applications they offer, in some ways has been a detriment to social situations in that basic people skills are gradually being lost and people just get to know social networking site’s version of the real person.

Easy to read, well written and hugely enjoyable.  Would definitely recommend.