On Friday, a simple coaching question filled a hole in my life.
I've loved Twitter for years - like YEARS and years. I love that you can connect with someone and there's no pressure on you to spend a lot of energy maintaining that connection (loose ties, innit?) and there's no pressure on their side to reciprocate.
I've kind of fallen out of love with Twitter in the past year, but, boy, we had it good for a long while.
I had a ragtag community of weirdos who would support each other when things were tough. I made some real friends, a couple of which I would think of as some of my closest friends, even though we might have only met or Skyped once or twice.
Twitter friendship is hard to explain.
We laughed, we cried, we hashtagged. Some people hired me. People (including, like, real editors) proofread things. Experts gave me informed advice. Conferences offered me speaking gigs. Personally, professionally, it was great.
But more than anything, Twitter was like the best coffeeshop/breakroom you could imagine, filled with cool people WHO GOT YOUR JOKES. It was like living in the writers' room of the first four seasons of the Gilmore Girls.
Like any relationship, things changed.
And then I saw my friend Sas post on Facebook that she had deleted her Twitter account, because it wasn't like it used to be.
So, I went to Twitter and asked the question:
"Is it me or is Twitter broken? Is it time to leave?"
And for the next two days I had the best, warmest interaction I'd had online for maybe two or three years. We tweeted like it was 2012.
Some people shared my concern.
Some people said they still liked Twitter for certain things, but it was a harder place.
Some only used it for links and super-breaking news.
But others said they still loved Twitter, that it was a source of support and love and interest even now.
One of the common threads amongst these crazy idealists was that they did a fair bit of curation - lists, blocking, liberal (small 'l') unfollowing.
And it made me remember that I had a private list (called 'Checky') that I hadn't been to in maybe four years.
A list is a place you can visit where you say "When I'm here, I only want to see tweets from these specific people."
I clicked on that list and of course, all the old people were still there - I'd just been missing their tweets in amongst all the rest of the people I'd followed.
And I remembered: that's how I used to manage Twitter - I used to visit Checky more than my main timeline.
Then I thought some more.
I'd just regained some amazing interaction - like, stunning, heartwarming, the-old-band-is-getting-back-together interaction - and why?
Well, I'd asked an honest question. I'd then responded to the responses. LIKE I USED TO ALL THE TIME.
I'd been treating Twitter like a chore. Or worse: like (don't say it) INSTAGRAM. I'd been posting a photo once a day with a tiny message.
Pecking Twitter on the cheek.
Instead, I showed up. And my people showed up.
I realised: if Twitter was broken, it was because I broke it.
So, if you've got a situation that isn't like the old days... are you doing the things you used to do in the old days?
I mean, sure, things change. In the past two years I've had many more local friends here in Birmingham than I ever had in the Caravan Office years when we lived with my Mum-in-law or even when I was in Singapore. Twitter used to serve a really important emotional role back then.
So, yes, your environment might have changed.
And, yes, sometimes things are broken.
But before you totally throw in the towel ask yourself:
Did I break this? Can I fix it? What did I used to do? Can I just start doing that again?
You never know. Maybe it's not as broke as you thought.