Ummmmm……
So I got a facebook friend request today from someone whose name I didn’t recognize. I pulled up his profile and the only common connection I could find was that we live in the same city. So I sent him a message. Our (paraphrased) conversation went a little like this…
Me: Hello! Do I know you from somewhere?
Him: I’m a writer trying to build word of mouth. Now we know eachother!
Me (a little confused and weirded out): Well, I certainly wish you the best, but I use facebook to manage a network of friends I know from real life, so I’ll be denying your friend request.
Him (polite, but apparently annoyed): No problem. But social networking sites are about meeting new people. That’s what REAL life is all about. If I want to talk to friends I already know, I’ll call them.
And now, I so so so want to write him back to claim the last word, but the more mature and reasoned part of me (and also the part of me that listens to my wife) realizes that there’s nothing to accomplish here, nothing to gain and so I should do that which is often hardest for me to do…. Â just let it go, man.
But honestly. I get social networking sites, ok? I understand why they exist and what the point is and I realize that they can be a tremendously powerful tool for bringing people together that might otherwise never meet. You know what else is? Walking down the street and asking everyone you meet to be your best friend. I’d find that a little wierd too and probably treat someone who approcahed me like that with the same mix of politeness and “sorry-no-thanks”ness that I gave the facebook guy. I likes me some facebook, but I like to use it to keep in touch with people I already know and to reconnect with people I haven’t seen in a long time.
In short, I’m interested in the social, and could give a crap about the networking. Sorry random facebook not-my-friend if I’m not using a social network to its fullest advantage and sorry that you think I’m not living my REAL life to its fullest.
Guess what? I don’t need your opinion on what I’m doing wrong. So here’s a little wall-to-wall from me to you…
Get bent.
Awesome.
I don’t have a Facebook account but have other things like Twitter, Plurk, Friendster. I also do not become “Friends” with people I don’t know or at least sort of know. I feel pretty much exactly the same as you.
I don’t just troll around looking for random people that live in Boston or something and then attack them with friend requests. I think it’s bizarre. Before I basically stopped using Twitter because it’s always broken I was constantly blocking people from following me, which is not at all the point but which I found hilarious.