friend:
I wonder if old definitions of what a “friend” is really apply anymore in our share-everything digital age.
Like most, I have a love-hate relationship with social media. There are days that I’m so grateful for the new connections I’ve made and the ability to rekindle old ones. And there are days that Facebook makes me want to puke, I hate it so much – especially during election season, or anytime someone talks about Chick-Fil-A. Ahem.
Which begs the question: if I had a better definition of who my “friends” are on Facebook, would it make any difference? Would I stop having Facebook Puke Days and only have Facebook Group Hugs?
Admittedly, my definition of a “friend” on Facebook has been somewhat rubberband-y in nature – stretching and contracting as my desire for online interaction spikes wildly.
When I joined Facebook, I was like Ke$ha. I accepted any and all requests from people whose names at least reminded me of someone I know in real life.
Over time, I became annoyed by the onslaught of daily friend requests, including the blind date guy who kissed me in a Chicago parking garage in 1997 (I didn’t want him to. Kiss me, that is. Or friend me.). I purged IRL people who I found toxic, inflammatory or consistently depressing.
When I began blogging, I decided to keep Blog Persona and Non Blog Persona separate for privacy’s sake, and didn’t friend many bloggers.
But by 2011, Ke$ha was back, only in a slightly less slutty skirt. I realized that approximately 275 of my 700 personal Facebook friends are bloggers, most of whom I’ve never met, traded emails with, or would recognize if they walked up to me in a Starbucks.
And now? I don’t really know how I decide who to friend on Facebook.
What I know is this.
I still chew my nails when someone shows up in my “People You May Know” list who I don’t feel I know well enough to “friend”, even if I want to. I wonder if they’re thinking the same thing, or if they even know who I am. Sometimes, this ends up in a virtual one-sided standoff: I won’t friend them if they don’t think I’m friend enough to friend me themselves. HUH?
I still get annoyed that some of my friends are closed-minded, overzealous or inflammatory, and they don’t even realize it – or maybe they don’t care.
I still want to scream when some friends don’t seem to have anything ever go wrong in their perfect little Martha Stewart lives.
I still wonder if I should friend people with whom I work directly.
I still get frustrated when I really want to post a status update but can’t because of who might read it.
But I also know this:
I truly, truly enjoy seeing updates from people I knew in elementary, high school and college – even the ones with whom I was merely acquainted. Some of those “acquaintanceships” have evolved into legit friendships BECAUSE of Facebook.
I treasure the outpouring of support I received on Facebook – again, from many who were acquaintances – when my husband was out of work a few years ago.
I get a kick out of the fact that my kid plays XBox live games with a kid of one of my best friends from law school – who I haven’t actually had any communication with, outside of Facebook, for nearly twenty years.
I like having a window into other aspects of my blogger friends’ lives – the aspects they may not necessarily share on their blogs.
I want to know when people get married, get divorced, have a baby, pass away – and share in those moments with them – and with others who know them – even if from a distance.
Maybe our Facebook circles are really no different than real life.
We have people in our lives who bug us. Who make us smile. With whom we share a bumpy road, or explore a new friendship.
We take the good with the bad. Sometimes we weed out some of the bad stuff, and sometimes we overlook it.
Some days are full of group hugs, and others…puke.
I guess my definition of a Facebook friend is: someone with whom there lies possibility – personal or professional.
And there’s so, so much possibility.
How do you decide who to friend on Facebook?
About the Author Gigi Ross
I'm a blogger, social media geek, mom and wife, foodie, reality TV addict and Jason Mraz fangirl. Not in that order. I write here about parenting, blogging, technology, social media and pop culture.
{ 29 comments… read them below or add one }
Interesting question. I’m going to enjoy the comments, because, frankly, I don’t have my own answer.
I am very strict about who I friend on FB. From the beginning I have seen it as a great way to keep up with friends and family. (And Twitter as a way to get to know new people.) I share things on FB I don’t on any other site.
My initial rule was only to friend people I know in real life. But as I developed close, strong online friendships, I started to open that up a little. But I am still extremely selective. I regularly receive friend requests I don’t accept from people I interact with casually on other social networking sites.
But I am currently so sick on the political posts on FB I am thinking I need to stay off until after the election or hide/unfriend a lot of people. I can’t abide the hate mongering and name calling. Especially from people I call “friends.”
Oh facebook. I have such weirdo rules with exceptions, of course, for who I friend.
No current students. Ever.
No former students that I didn’t get to know better than their name on a paper and a butt in a seat.
No student parents. Ever.
No one that I don’t know.
No one that is my boss.
Other than that, I am pretty much an “accept” gal. Mostly because I am so google-able, there isn’t any privacy for me online. So I wouldn’t post anything anywhere that I wasn’t comfortable with the whole world (bosses, student parents, and grandmas included) knowing even if I DON’T friend them on fb.
Because there are ways of finding all of that out.
Like reading my blog.
Katie´s last [type] ..God and avocados
I agree my system has changed as well with what I post and what I only think about posting, I used to post multiple times daily and I’m now on a much lower scale. I had a definite line drawn with twitter being twitter/bloggers and facebook being “real life” until I really got to know the twitter people and wanted to know more about their real life. Then there are those twitter people that friend me on facebook and I feel like there’s a reason for it even if I don’t feel like I know them. I also enjoy seeing how old friends turned out, these are people I wondered about before facebook existed..it really must be different for everyone.
Coffee Lovin’ Mom´s last [type] ..Coffee Confessions From the Compound
I used to be insane and would accept any friend request that came my way. Then a lot of drama happened, and I realized I had over 900 Facebook friends. I took an entire nap time and deleted 500 people. I now only have around 400 friends, and they are people I actually care about speaking with.
Also? I deleted my MIL and my husband’s family. I would post things on Facebook, and they would immediately call my husband to “tattle” to him about what I was writing. Not that it is even scandalous or inappropriate, but it was just weird they felt the need to call him. So I deleted them. Now my mother in law is always bringing it up, but I just ignore it.
I keep Twitter open and like to use that to talk to new people.
Jessica´s last [type] ..A Lesson In Kindness
Oh my word, my SIL does that too! I can’t unfriend her though because she’ll call Hubby to complain. I did, however, block her from seeing most of my status updates.
Hannah´s last [type] ..Innocent Comments and Questions
I’m pretty much right where you are with all of this. I go back and forth with where my boundaries are and as a result, I’ve changed how I am on my personal Facebook page a bit – I don’t post as many photos and I’m a little more mindful with my updates. I totally feel like I could have written this post…it was like you were speaking from my head….LOL.
I’m glad we’re FB friends though! I think it’s added a different dimension to our online friendship – but I have gotten requests from other bloggers I haven’t actually met and I usually don’t accept those. I like to meet the person first….”in person”…so that’s probably my biggest boundary at this point.
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I’m a friendee, not a friender. Just like you described–if they don’t think I’m friend enough to friend, I’m not going to friend them.
I do love being friends with bloggy friends, but I’m surprised at some of the people who friend me. I expect people that I tweet with or read a lot, but I get some that I barely know and have to google to find out who they are.
Leigh Ann´s last [type] ..Unbreakable
If you want to see huge life of social network then this is the best platform to create your own social network where you can share and gain many things just after a single post.
I’m very restrictive on fb. It’s for people I know in real life, and want to know about. I unfriend easily. If I don’t like political rants or hourly eat/sleep/poop updates, I just unfriend. Not worth another thought. I don’t even accept most family. I’m that restrictive.
I used to be very restrictive about it. I was a teacher and actually had my privacy settings turned WAY up in terms of what was searchable and what wasn’t.
Gradually I loosened the reins a little, and now I am pretty open with it. My URL has been my actual name for a year now, so I am not too, too hard to find.
angela´s last [type] ..Trust Your Eyes Review
When I first started blogging a year ago I made the personal decision not to integrate my bloggy friends into my facebook… 6 months later I think that changed completey and I’ve found that my most enjoyable feeds come from those “bloggy” friends.
Facebook is my huge connection as to what is happening back home since I no longer live there… there’s only so much I can know about from a distance. Then again, it’s a huge addiction that I need to break too.
But I remember when I got that first bloggy friend request. I sat there for quite awhile not entirely sure what to do. I wasn’t sure if I was ready to “integrate” the two. But now it’s old news, often, when i get a friend request now though I ask, “how do I know this person?” It’s still hard for me to friend names I don’t recognize at all, etc.
Jamie´s last [type] ..Rosenthal Malibu Wines!
Oh my vision is getting so bad. I read this fast and thought you were going to tell us you were PG via “Rules of engorgement.”
Engagement…ooooh.
Well. I do FB in a very limited not knowing way. If there is a link to a FB share on the bottom of a post, I’ll click it. As far as entering a unique post of my own, or comment or pictures? I don’t do.
When I do go on FB, I find it overwhelming to my senses. Just a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG list of updates and then I look and am astounded at how IT IS ONLY updates from like the past half a day.
Holy cow. No way. Can’t keep up.
And as with everything on FB, I miss the point.
I get the feeling I messed up with your FB post, I didn’t really answer the question, did I?
Ahh, see FB? I just don’t get it. I know we have to do it, b/c of ease of share due to tremendous volume, but just don’t get how the interaction works.
Twitter. Twitter, I get. In. Out. Dust off palms b/c it’s done.
Wow. Did you see what Sam up there’s bringing to the table?
I think we should all follow him.
Sam is a gal.
I friend a lot of people. But then I also use lists, so if I don’t want them to see an update, they won’t. I work in social, so sometimes I *have* to friend people I work with for various reasons. And that’s precisely why I’m careful what I say, or I just don’t let them see updates.
Am tempted to wait to come back after elections, though. Just so tired of it all.
becky´s last [type] ..Gone in an instant
My Facebook friend list is a bit of a mish-mash, and honestly, I hardly know anybody. But like Twitter, the stream moves fast, and reading about the lives of people I know and don’t know fulfills me (’cause I’m super nosy). I don’t send out friend requests, but accept most (except for those who have names like Sallycouponhead or have a cartoon character as their picture). Mostly I have good experiences….well, except for the time that guy was all, “Hi! I marry you, we go for long walk on beach, and I treat you like man and you woman”….yeah, I suspect his name also wasn’t really Frank Malone.
Sandra´s last [type] ..Going back to school as a grown ass woman!
I tried to separate my real-life friends from my blogger friends on Facebook at first too. I followed new people on Twitter, but I left Facebook for “real” friends. But then I started going to blogging conferences and on press trips and I met many of my blogging and social media friends in person and real-lfe and blogging life collided. Still, if I don’t recognize the name of the person requesting “friendship” on Twitter, I don’t accept them as a friend. And, I have a separate page for my blog so that helps.
Colleen Lanin´s last [type] ..Learning How to Be Happy in France
Hard to keep things in different aisles when you are sharing on a blog … people can read what they want too … but then when we have real stuff to say, we become mute because we don’t know how to share some stuff since we let all our walls down already … or is that just me.
I am so glad to have spent real life time with you Gigi, I know that I would love you down the street … so feel blessed for friends I have made thro social media.
But it can be overwhelming for sure …
By Word of Mouth Musings´s last [type] ..Hip to be Square
I went through a phase where I accepted friend requests from bloggers I barely knew and didn’t really interact with. I recently went through and deleted most of them. The main reason was that my feed was full of stuff from people I didn’t really know or care about, but I also wanted to be careful about what I shared and with whom.
And now I’ve just realized that you closed down the account we were friends on and I’m not friends with you on your main account. And I’m too shy to ask.
Robin | Farewell, Stranger´s last [type] ..Change 10 Lives with Water
I pretty much accept friend requests from everyone and don’t share anything I don’t want public. I’ve been blogging about personal stuff since 2004/2005, so being private online to me, seems silly. I use lists to hide people, but generally don’t unfriend except for the worst of offenses.
Laura Lohr @mommycanrun´s last [type] ..The Dailey Method—Fitness Challenge for September
LOVE this. I think you nailed it with your conclusions. Facebook IS in “some” ways like real life in that we click with some more than others. I love your point about the possibility that seems to exist there. I agree also about how some old acquaintances now feel closer BECAUSE of Facebook. I think there’s more good on there than bad–at least in the broad circles I’m friends with there.
As for friend requests . . . that’s a tough one. Sometimes when a blogger friends my personal page I want to say, “hey, actually this is my personal page but here is my blog page.” But I don’t because I can’t bring myself to type that sentence to another person. The idea feels icky. Though I honestly wouldn’t mind if someone told ME that, I’m sure some people would mind. Tricky stuff! Great post.
Nina´s last [type] ..The Biggest Closet Purge Ever
I love this, we should be FB friends.
Seriously, tho, I only joined in April. I do not want to friend a ton of people I knew in HS, but I do connect with my college friends, my former work friends, my blogging friends who I feel it works with. I have unfriended people when I recognized I had done a deer in the headlights acceptance to their offer. I thought I should say yes to the request so I did. Now I do what works for me, for the most part. Of course I have a few people that I am still wondering about. I like the potential aspect, I may have to borrow it!
Andrea´s last [type] ..Wishful thinking
I only friend people I’ve met in person, and then I use lists to keep most personal stuff hidden from those I barely know.
I find my blogging friends are the least likely to make me want to puke with their status updates.
Poppy´s last [type] ..2012 Kia Soul Review – A Car I Can Get With
I have 3 different accounts on facebook. One is for my personal meaning I only add friends I know and closest to our family.And teh other 2 is for business and work. I am not engaging on my other friends that I do not personally know about personal matters.
Becca@Grout Cleaning Melbourne´s last [type] ..Grout Cleaning Wyndham Vale
I have been using FB since 2008 and my general rule is to friend people I knew/know in real life ( “real” friends, old high school/college friends, family, and people I have crossed paths with in other settings excluding current colleagues). However, even with trying to stick to somewhat strict FB rules, I’ve noticed that as my number of FB connections increases, I tend to share less.
Valerie´s last [type] ..What would you like to read about?
I like how you say about facebook that we should take the good with the bad.
I had a negative experience with facebook and left it for a good while. But then little by little I stopped being so upset about the “bad” and missed knowing what people that I don’t speak with often were up to. I missed pictures and smiles and fun stories. So I returned and I am happy that I did.
Thanks for a great post!
Olga
Olga´s last [type] ..What would you like to read about?
Awesome, when I first started reading your post I was thinking, no Facebook can be such a different experience. Then, I got to your ending as thought, what an amazing analogy. You are right on girl!
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