So I signed up for a Facebook account the other day. The story why I did, and why it took this long, is long and complicated. For a long time, I'd defiantly remained clear of the social networking sites. I still remember a few years back, when both sites liberalized their membership rules; it upset several of my students who felt those sites should be their generation's exclusive province. Since then, I've had a hard time getting away from the idea that Facebook and MySpace are for kids.
It doesn't take long to set up the account. And, yet, as soon as I set the account up, there was already a friend request from someone I don't really know. There were suggestions for people, based on various bits of data submitted during signup, to whom I could send friend requests. A handful were people I actually know. Many of them weren't. (The mayor of the nearest large city? A local news anchor? Please.)
Immediately, I felt like I was back in high school. Complete with all the social awkwardness. All that was missing was a piece of notebook paper saying, "Do you like me?" with the "yes" and "no" check boxes. Maybe some people can deal with that, and they're used to it. Me, I can't. I can't wrap my head around the idea of having to deal with friend requests, of being concerned about being turned down if I send a friend request to someone, of the ramifications of "unfriending." It just doesn't fit my style. (Plus, I don't handle rejection very well, I'm afraid. Like John Houseman as Admiral Barnswell in the great Seven Days in May, "I only bet on sure things.")
I'm more accustomed to what's happened with the Interwebs as it had been. Someone posts a blog or a puts up a website and you can read it on the open Web, and then interact with them as you wish, no real strings attached. For instance, if you send me an e-mail through the address or leave me a comment, I like that it doesn't necessarily have any implications beyond itself. If I know you, we can carry on a correspondence or share a laugh. If you're someone I don't know, we can have a nice single-serving transaction. (Yes, here's where you can insert the line from Fight Club about "single-serving friends.")
But I'm not sure about the implied, and in many ways artificial, intimacy of the concept of friends on MySpace or Facebook. Maybe my concept of a "friend" is too old-fashioned. To me a "friend" is someone you know well, someone with whom you correspond regularly on subjects of shared interest, someone you'll go out of your way to meet up with when they're in town, somebody you'll get on a plane just to spend a few days with, somebody who'll come over on a Saturday and help you put an air conditioner in your spare room window. To me, a friend is someone you know.
That's distinct from an acquaintance: someone you know from a few two or three-line e-mails, or someone you know from seeing them two or three times a week at the store, when you exchange pleasantries and maybe a joke. Or, occasionally, it's someone famous who will drop you an e-mail and you'll engage in some brief correspondence (as has happened here). I'll sometimes use the term "ol' buddy" (as I did the other day) as a lighthearted analogy for this. You're pleased to make their acquaintance, and if circumstances allowed perhaps you would enjoy having them as friends, but it's not quite friendship in the classic sense. They're too busy, or you want to keep a professional distance, or something else is at work. Or you don't want to get your hopes up, only to have any meeting turn into Timmy Williams' Coffee Time.
So that's something else that bothers me about the concept of "friends" in the MySpace/Facebook sense. It's so "all or nothing," and worse still, it seems phony to me. If I send a friend request to a famous person because I want to read his or her blog, it implies a closer relationship than actually exists. It's really an online version of a fan club, when in reality, you don't know these people and they don't know you, and I try not to bother people I don't know unless I have business to transact. There are famous people I admire, but I really don't want to interact with them. I have no reason to take up any of their time. I'm content to admire their work from afar, and it will make no appreciable difference in my life if they acknowledge my existence. I've met a few famous people I admire, and I can tell you it's sort of like a diet-soda buzz: it's cool for a moment, but then life goes on.
Oh, I'm sure at some point I'll configure my new Facebook account and send out a few friend requests to some people I genuinely know and like. It's sort of in my best professional interests to have some form of functional social networking, and there are a few people with whom I would enjoy the interaction, I know. But, remember, I'm someone who didn't get a cell phone until six years ago, and even then it was for use in emergencies. And I'll be first in line the day they get a Selectric to run Snow Leopard.
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