On the nature of friendship in the online world
[I wrote this several days ago, and have been waiting for an opportune time to post it.]
Please forgive me if I ramble. I am exhausted, and may not make much sense here. But earlier tonight, I had some musings on the nature of friendship in the online world, with particular regard to that place where the real world and the online world most closely ( Read more... )
Everyone on my Facebook is someone I've hung out with, eaten a meal with or spent time with at the bar. Out of my 39 friends at my school, I'd say maybe 5 of them are random additions I made whilst drunk of people I don't know all that much.
I don't know how it works with strangers or people that seem cool. But because of Facebook, I've gotten closer to people that I've known in passing. I've been going to meetings and seeing some of the same people every week for the last 2 and a half years, but I've never been all that talkative. We became facebook friends and exchanged some messages, and now I'm all sorts of talkative (well, for me, anyway) around them.
You talk of invading the person's space. It's funny - I have a friend on Facebook...and then I found her on MySpace but felt weird about adding her. I would welcome any messages from people listed as friends...if I accepted them as a friend, and I didn't really know them at all - I'd almost expect a message. I'm sure there are the types that are just "collecting" friends...but generally, I would say, if they're worth knowing, they'd be welcome to messages.
I may have more to say later...it's interesting to think about.
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