Uganda Picks

By Martha Nakimuli

A 51- year- old woman  a resident in Winnetka, Illinois on 31st of December made a resolution to meet all 325 of her Facebook friends in person, the following year.

ArLynn Presser, a writer and a blogger who spent most of her life indoors made this decision in 2010 and wrote a blog post about it.

ArLyn, was  a person who was terrified of flying and could never get on a plane before, this was certainly a daunting task.

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.

Since 2011 she has traveled 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 has been to Taiwan, Korea, Philippines, Dubai, Italy, Malaysia, Ireland, England, Germany and four other countries.

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 according to odditycentral news.