Twitter’s Transatlantic Homeless Love Match
Homeless Tales: They say truth is stranger than fiction. We have already seen some remarkable events unfold on Twitter including international breaking news stories such as the Hudson river plane crash and a revolution in Moldova. Romance is nothing new either, there have already been a number of marriage proposals taking place in full public view on the social network. There are even twitter dating sites springing up such as MyTweetheart.com and Twitterbirds.com. You name it, it has happened on Twitter. This story is a little different, however.
So inaccurate is the public perception of homelessness that the world cries foul when a homeless person is seen with a mobile phone or an iPod or heaven forbid; a laptop. Homeless people don’t use the internet, they don’t write blogs, they’re not webmasters and they don’t use Twitter. They are alcoholics, they are substance abusers, they are illiterate. They don’t work. They sure as hell don’t have the right to fall in love. Do they?
I was made homeless during March of 2008 following a sequence of events some of which were of my own making and others largely beyond my control. I had worked all my life, I was a homeowner, I did not have alcohol or substance abuse issues. I was computer literate and reasonably articulate. I was a writer and a blogger, good enough to have my work feature on the front page of digg now and then. I’ve also been known to use Twitter.
