Facebook fail
It occurred to me today that most of the people Facebook is recommending I friend fall into one of two categories: people in Minnesota I'm unlikely to see even if I go back to Convergence one of these days, and former high school classmates I haven't seen in thirty-plus years. Okay, there's also a pile of voice actors recommended to me because I know people at Detour who know them, either on staff or in the industry.
But I don't really know any of these people, you know? Not in the sense that they're really friends; most of them are people I met once or twice, might have worked with at one convention or another, but I haven't heard from them since I left the Great American Desert and moved down here. So I don't feel any great urge to reconnect with them, because that would imply that there was some sort of connection before Facebook, and there really wasn't. If there was, I would have gone ahead and clicked the box by now. Or they would have clicked on their box and asked me if I wanted to friend them back. Either way, I don't have any illusions about really being part of these peoples' lives.
Since I'm not interested in accumulating a pile of "friends" I don't really know and don't have that much to do with (even online), I try to be careful and not "friend" people I don't actually know in real life. Most people are pretty cool with that, and those that aren't, well, too bad. I'm basically treating Facebook the same way I do LJ: it's there for my convenience, not that of random strangers, and part of that is not adding people I don't know, with very, very few exceptions. I know there's people out there who just hoover up all kinds of acquaintances, friends of friends, and people they met once at a party or maybe it was a bar but they were kinda wasted at the time so...anyway. I don't understand those people, and have no great urge to be one of them.
But I don't really know any of these people, you know? Not in the sense that they're really friends; most of them are people I met once or twice, might have worked with at one convention or another, but I haven't heard from them since I left the Great American Desert and moved down here. So I don't feel any great urge to reconnect with them, because that would imply that there was some sort of connection before Facebook, and there really wasn't. If there was, I would have gone ahead and clicked the box by now. Or they would have clicked on their box and asked me if I wanted to friend them back. Either way, I don't have any illusions about really being part of these peoples' lives.
Since I'm not interested in accumulating a pile of "friends" I don't really know and don't have that much to do with (even online), I try to be careful and not "friend" people I don't actually know in real life. Most people are pretty cool with that, and those that aren't, well, too bad. I'm basically treating Facebook the same way I do LJ: it's there for my convenience, not that of random strangers, and part of that is not adding people I don't know, with very, very few exceptions. I know there's people out there who just hoover up all kinds of acquaintances, friends of friends, and people they met once at a party or maybe it was a bar but they were kinda wasted at the time so...anyway. I don't understand those people, and have no great urge to be one of them.