According to my silly calendar of holidays today is "Friendship Day" so I hope everyone is being friendly! If anyone cares to know I am surviving quite well without my Facebook account or news feed... I did however have the urge last night to look someone up, but obviously couldn't and therefore was stopped in my tracks. I was sitting around chatting with some people I had met a few times, but was this time was able to get to know better. However, group settings aren't always the best place to get information on people one-on-one. This is where I might have turned to Facebook to fill in the gaps for me, the unanswered questions. Honestly, questions I probably wouldn't have asked outright or wouldn't ask until we'd spent more time together. I love knowing more about people and putting their life puzzle together in my head, some call it gossip or stalking, but really it helps me get a feel for who they are. I depend(ed) a lot on the site to help me navigate finding those answers. This time I'm left in suspense until another chance to hang out with these people arises, if it ever does!
So, on that same line of thought and it being friendship day and all, I figure it's a good day to talk about friend requests. This is such a contrast to reality if you think about it. Have you ever met someone and thought you could start a friendship with them and then outright asked "Can we be friends?" NO! I haven't done that since at least elementary school. You simply invite them to do do things and the friendship happens, right? I know in the world of cyberspace you've got to protect yourself and asking is pretty necessary or else you'd have all kinds of creepers looking at your profile, but it's almost hilarious that it's gotten to be that way.
Before the time of 'notifications' when someone accepted your friend request you'd have no way of knowing unless you went through your list of friends and noticed they had been added, which is exactly what my college roommate and I used to do. She needed to know if this guy she met at a party was now her friend and they could exchange more information about each other via Facebook. It's funny now, but I vaguely remember it being so exciting to see how quickly he accepted her. Now of course we are instantly notified and may never know or figure it out if we've been rejected by a request. In some odd way I think it would be interesting if when a friend request was denied the person got a small message back that said "I appreciate you asking, but no thank you." I think it'd be better than waiting forever to hear back, but are those truly friends anyhow or simply someone you met once and thought was pretty cool?
I have found that as I've moved on from the college way of life and am in more of a rational adult stage I see the value in getting to know someone very well before I feel it necessary to give them access to so much information about me. Ultimately it's my choice to share as much as I do via Facebook, some prefer to keep it minimal- either one works! I simply don't mind sharing more and keeping my 'friend' circle a bit smaller. I think most people should already know the things about me that are posted as basics on my profile and therefore if you are my friend on the site than none of it is news to you.
Friend me!
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