爲見Facebook好友 美國大媽環遊世界

ArLynn Presser is a 51-year-old woman who lives in Winnetka, Illinois. It’s normal for ArLynn to stay indoors all the time. In fact, for most of her adult life, she hardly ever left the confines of her home, and most certainly did not venture out of her home town. Her career as a writer ensured that she could spend her life indoors and still get things done. If this sounds strange to you, you must know that ArLynn suffers from agoraphobia – the fear of crowded places or enclosed public spaces.
Arlynn Presser（阿蓮·普瑞色）今年51歲，居住在伊利諾斯州的溫內卡特。她基本上每天都待在家裏。實際上，在她成年以後，幾乎沒有離開過家，更不要提離開家鄉了。她是一名作家，這讓她可以足不出戶就能把事情做好。這事情聽起來很奇怪，不過這是因爲Arlynn患有陌生環境恐懼症---害怕擁擠的地方或封閉的公共場所。

Like most introverts, ArLynn interacts with people online and she has 325 friends she chats with on Facebook. Last year, she went and did something that no one could have ever expected. On 31st of Dec, 2010, she made a resolution to meet all 325 of her Facebook friends in person, the following year. She wrote a blog post about it and then set about achieving her goal. She called her project “Face to Facebook”.
就像大部分內向的人一樣，Arlynn是通過網絡和他人交流，現在她在Facebook（臉譜）上已經有325名好友。就在去年，她做了別人都未曾想過的事情。2010年12月31日，她下定決心要在下一年和她Facebook上的325名好友親自見面。爲此她寫了一篇博客，然後開始實現目標。她把這一計劃叫做 “Facebook面對面”。

For a person who was terrified of flying and could never get on a plane before, this was certainly a daunting task. In the end, she did a great job, traveling over 13 countries and taking over 39 flights. By the end of 2011, she had met 292 friends, about 90% of what she had intended to. ArLynn had been to Taiwan, Korea, Philippines, Dubai, Italy, Malaysia, Ireland, England, Germany and four other countries.
對於一個害怕飛行，以前從未登上飛機的人來說，這無疑是個艱鉅的任務。最後，她的表現非常出色，到過13個國家，坐過39次飛機。到2011年底，她已經 和292名好友見過面，是預想的90%。Arlynn去過中國臺灣、韓國、菲律賓、迪拜、意大利、馬來西亞、愛爾蘭、英國、德國和其他四個國家。

According to Presser, this was something she just had to do, to make a drastic change in her life. She said, “A lot of it was just realizing that with my sons gone, I was spending a lot more time alone and a lot more time in front of the computer.” Of the 325 people she had decided to meet, a few were her old friends from high school and college. A few weren’t keen on her idea of ‘meeting’ and unfriended or blocked her, 18 people ignored her repeated requests to meet, two were profiles of pets, and five people had passed away.
Presser說，她必須要這麼做，來徹底改變自己的生活。她說：“這麼做是因爲我意識到隨着兒子們的離去，我獨處的時間越來越長，在電腦前呆的時間也越來越長。” 在她決定見面的325名好友中，有幾個是她在高中和大學時的老朋友，有幾個不想和她“見面”，在Facebook上把她刪除了或加入了黑名單，有18個忽視了她的一再請求，其中兩個人的頁面是寵物的簡介，還有五個人已經離世了。

Meeting her Facebook friends was not always easy and she sometimes found herself in the middle of an anxiety attack. For instance, when one hairdresser friend offered to cut her hair, the skin on her face, chest and arms broke into hives. Sometimes she would face emotional breakdowns and moments of panic. For safety reasons, she always had a chaperon with her, and made sure the meetings were conducted in public.
和她Facebook上的好友見面並不容易，有時侯她的焦慮症會發作。例如，有一次，她的理髮師好友主動給她理髮，她的臉上、胸上和胳膊上卻因此起了麻疹。有時她的情緒會突然失控並感到恐慌。爲了安全起見，她總是帶一名女伴，並確保見面地點是在公共場所。

Despite all the problems she faced, ArLynn did seem to have some wonderful moments. One of her friends taught her how to open a champagne bottle with a sabre. She also learned opera singing, trained to be a bodyguard, rode in a motorcycle sidecar, took Zumba lessons and climbed a mountain in California – all with her Facebook friends. Quite a year, I must say! Now her incredible experience has inspired a documentary called “Face to Facebook“, about Facebook, anxiety, and the power of social media to inspire great personal change.
雖然遇到了很多難題，Arlynn也留下了一些精彩的瞬間。她的一個好友教她用刀子打開香檳。她還學習了歌劇演唱、接受了保鏢訓練、乘坐了挎鬥摩托車、學習了尊巴健身舞，在加利福尼亞還爬了座山—這些都是和她Facebook上的好友一起完成的。我不得不說，這是不平凡的一年！現在，她的這一不可思議的經歷激發了製作人的靈感，決定製作一部名爲“Facebook面對面”的紀錄片，講述關於Facebook、焦慮以及社交媒體激發個人鉅變的力量。