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How confidently can you say that you know all your friends on Facebook? Why did you add them in the first place? Do you actually remember meeting them? How long ago was that and have you talked to them since? Maybe you last talked to some of them yesterday, or last week, or a decade ago.
Matthew Kulesza, a student in Melbourne, Australia, was asking himself these kinds of questions as he went through his Facebook friends list to start deleting some people. He asked himself if he would have coffee with the person, and if not, he would delete the “friend.” He then had an inspiration that started him on a social adventure.
He has planned to have a cup of coffee with every one of his 1000+ Facebook friends. While catching up with all these nearly forgotten memories, he’s also digging up stories. He strongly believes everyone has an interesting story to tell.
Kulesza started this quest early September, and has been able to catch up with 30 of his friends so far.
Kulesza is a full-time student, he plays in a band, and he also works two part-time jobs, but he has been trying to meet at least five of his Facebook friends every week.
How have his Facebook friends reacted to his coffee date requests? Kulesza said, “They have been happy to catch up. It has been interesting having forced nostalgic sessions with people spanning huge periods of my life. Reconnecting with people I otherwise would probably never see again in the real world has been a really amazing experience. A reminder of why I decided to hit the ‘add friend’ button in the first place.”
Kulesza has started a special Facebook page and Tumblr blog to document all of these nostalgic memories. Each post from his coffee dates explains the details of his relationship with the person, and also the kind of coffee they drink. It has a similar feel to the popular work of photographer Brandon Stanton in “Humans of New York.” Stanton encounters New Yorkers and provides a snapshot of their lives. Could Kulesza’s project become the new “Humans of New York”?
Here are some of his posts from this week:
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Having lived in Tokyo and made friends spread across most of the continents, Epoch Times wondered how Kulesza would manage coffees with his friends abroad. He said: “I am going to first work on catching up with all my Melbourne friends, and once I run out of that, who knows what could happen down the line and who might be interested in helping bridge human connections and real life interactions around the world.”
As the Indian coffee brand Café Coffee Day’s slogan goes, “A lot can happen over a cup of coffee.”
