I haven’t been doing much updating on Twitter nor Facebook lately. I felt as if I was getting swept up in the documenting of my every move and wasn’t spending enough time living in the moment. Plus, it got annoying trying to keep with friends I honestly didn’t care about anymore. It started to feel like an obligatory waste of time to comment on their status updates, look at their funny photos and answer the dumb quiz "how well do you know so-and-so?"requests.
When I finally decided to reconnect again, I found several pending friend requests to administer. I love getting friend requests. About the time I hit 250 on my list, I figured I’d maxed out. I couldn’t think of another person I cared to get into contact with again. But alas, I’m now over 350 as people still keep popping out of the woodwork.
As I was weeding through the friend requests, a few oddities jumped out at me. This is what I just don’t get about Facebook friending:
- Why do people who don’t know me want to be my friend? I don’t care that we have six friends in common. If we’re not friends in the real world, I don’t want to be your friend in cyberspace. I’ve got enough people to keep up with, much less the ones I don’t know.
- If you send me a friend request, why don’t you write something to me too? Whenever I send a friend request, I always include a personal message. If I bother to request your friendship, that means I do care what you're up to and I would like to catch up. I don’t understand why people bother if they truly don't have a word to say to me. What’s the point?
- Let’s also not extend our rekindled online friendship past the line that the real-life friendship existed within. For example, I got a friend request from a girl with whom I went to elementary school. We were friends back then, but were not friends into junior high or high school. I was happy to reconnect and catch up on those early days via a few back and forth messages. But enough is enough. I don’t want to exert any more energy on a friendship I willingly gave up more than 30 (!) years ago; but she doesn’t seem to take the hint. That’s freaking annoying!
- Then there’s the friends you find again, truly want to put in some effort to reconnect with, but neither of you will go out on a limb to take the next step. I’ve been playing it with a few friends—it’s called the “You Call Me” game. It goes like this: “Hey! Great to see you here! It’s been a zillion years! Call me at 555-1212”. Then the reply message says: “Great to see you too! Kids are adorable. Call me at 444-1313.” And then you never speak (nor write) again.
Facebook is a social phenomenon and creates situations that are new to us all.
ReplyDeleteConsidering that I'm one of those "fringe" Facebook friends with little to show for my being part of your network I feel immanently qualified to comment. There's no obligation to connect and beyond having done so no obligation to actively engage. I too have found myself forced to digest endless drivel from people I wasn't particularly interested in talking to thirty years ago simply because it was neat to see their name pop-up; who knew people could sustain high levels of boredom through all these years?
However I've wound up finding a few interesting chroniclers of life via Facebook that I only knew from when we were kids who provide a steady flood of insights, musings and engaging prose that makes it easy to look past the awkwardness of the mostly non-existent relationship/friendship and indulge freely.
But can you legitimately complain considering you have over 350 friends in your network? Perhaps you might want to consider the occasional "no".
In the meantime keep posting and blogging, you have an interesting and engaging view into (your) life.
I just found your blog from MBC - I love this post and I couldn't agree with you more! I think some people think they have to friend everyone just to see how many friends they can get! I have reconnected with some old HS and college roommates that I lost touch with over the years. That's what it's there for not to hear about people and there troubles. Very cute blog .. I will follow!;)
ReplyDeleteI couldn't have said it better myself, and am totally nodding in agreement.
ReplyDeleteI hate these little chain-letter tags. This morning, my whole facebook feed is covered with "phenomenal women". Ya, ya, ditto to you all too. Visiting from Networked Blogs.