The Invasion of the Ladybugs (the Reprise), Drive-by Friendings, and Other Randomness

[dawn_felagund]

Today was an unusually warm day. Of course, I dressed for a Maryland day in late October and ended up more with a mid-September Maryland day, so I was a bit warm, though Johnny came in the office, blinked, and said, "You look nice today!" So I guess the new skirt works

Comments

[tehta]

Ooh--where is this friending feature? It's not Joule, is it?

[sinneahtes]

I think she's talking about LJ's Message Center--you can set it to e-mail you or just notify you with a message when someone adds you as a friend. :)

[dawn_felagund]

No, it's from LJ. They introduced that notification feature a few months ago where you can opt to receive updates whenever someone posts to their LJ or adds a comment to a certain post or thread, and one of the things it allowed you to do was to receive email or message notification when you get a new friend. This was one of the things that they didn't advertise so heavily, which surprised me since the majority of people I know either wait for someone to speak up in their LJ or check their userinfo periodically. (I did the latter.)

Niki's link should work. It's nice to have, both as a convenience for real friends and as a means to observe the friending behavior of some of the nutjobs out there!

[sinneahtes]

LJ friending is such a weird thing... I almost always have a "You friend me, I friend you back" policy because I'm a nosy person >:D, at least when I'm sure adding someone won't get me into some sort of trouble, but some people can be really WTF additions/deletions... like girls who not only have nothing in common with me, but are like the girls I absolutely just could not relate to in high school. They have no tolerance for nerds like me... so why add me to their friends list? Research or something? ^_^;

Though I think I could see myself friending the same person again after removing them if I happen to like reading their journal for some reason (despite having few interests in common) and am shy and keep going back and forth in my mind between "It's fine to friend them!" and "No, keep her Friend of list clear! Some people get pissy about that sort of thing!" or something... and during certain slow periods of life, it's very nice to have an active friends list...

[dawn_felagund]

I find LJ friending behavior interesting and perhaps worthy of further study. :^P It's a pity that I didn't take up my professor's suggestion that I get my PhD in Social Psychology

[sinneahtes]

In the first instance, the person stated that if not re-friended within one hour, all of the drive-by friends would be removed.

WTF is the point of that... unless it's either an experiment of some sort, or just trying to test who'd make the most desperate friends or who's on the computer at the time? :P

But it's funny reading the LJs a drive-by frienders because so many people take great offense at being friended by a stranger. "I DONT LIKE U AND IM BANNING U!!1!!one1!!" was common. I didn't see the reason for the hoopla. For one, someone listing you as a friend gives them no special privileges, yet friending is surrounded by this great mystique.Haha, indeed... I admit sometimes when I get in a particular mood and need the numbers on my "Friend of" list to exactly match the numbers on my "Friends" list, I've had to ban someone who I'd removed from my friends list just so I wouldn't see her name (and her journals wouldn't imbalance the numbers) anymore, and I'm sure there are people who get driven even madder by small details like

[dawn_felagund]

I have a whole bowl (with a dead hand sticking out of it that grabs anyone who tries to take candy out of the bowl :^P) full of saltwater taffy. And will likely have no trick-or-treaters to share it with. :(

Trick-or-treating is sadly on the decline here, which bugs me since it was such a special night when I was a child.

[miss_nightowl]

Interesting what you wrote about friending... I don´t quite see the point about having such a huge f-list either. I mean, what is the point of friending anyone if you´re not at least gonna TRY to show some interest and getting to know the person?!
I have reduced my f-list from time to time, because I don´t really feel comfortable having people on my list who apparently don´t give a crap about me - I don´t wanna share personal stuff with them then. So I´ve removed them and they don´t even seem to have noticed!
Now I´m at this stage where I´m sick of doing all the de-friending too. If people are so goddamn indifferent, I can be the same.
But it does annoy me.

Err.... thanks for letting me use this place to rant.
;o) *somewhat guilty*

[dawn_felagund]

No feeling guilty! Ranting is welcome here

[miss_nightowl]

Because I am secretly evil, you see. ;)
Indeed? I must say you hide it very well. ;o)

I´m glad to hear someone else feels the same way though.
I realised I have very high standards when it comes to friendship and though I separate online friendships from real-life frienships, there certain forms of behaviour I have a problem with. And when someone friends me (even if I friended first, they STILL friend me back of their own will!), I expect them to at least TRY to establish some kind of connection.
I like to think I try (though perhaps some people would accuse me of not trying hard enough), but I will definitely lose interest if I don´t get anything back.

I mean, of course you´re not gonna connect with everyone on your f-list on the same level, but there has to be some connection, right?

Aaaaand there she goes ranting again. ;o)
Anyway, please do make a post about all this, I´d be very interested in reading and discussing it further.

[dawn_felagund]

*hugs back* Thank you! The hip hurts and the ladybugs are still bouncing around the room, but I feel pretty okay otherwise. ;)

I actually really like the friend notification feature. I'm more amused than anything by drive-by friendings. I simply do not understand why a person would want to friend someone who shares no interests and is a complete stranger. I doubt they'd read my LJ anyway. My entries are far too long!

Friending behavior really fascinates me.