The Friend Quandary

The bigger question is, who has the time to constantly monitor all of these darn sites?

Are you on Facebook? How about Linkedin? Me too. My friend Jon Wolfert responded via email a few days ago after I tried to connect via Linkedin.

OK, we’re “LinkedIn” now, but I really have no idea what to do with this site. A few months ago I played around with Facebook, mainly because I wanted to see some photos Melissa [his daughter] had posted on her page, and I find that is easier to deal with than this place. But even there I have a seemingly incompatible mix of family, friends and business types.

The bigger question is, who has the time to constantly monitor all of these darn sites? -j

He’s right. It’s a fulltime job.

I forgot to mention Twitter. I’m on Twitter too, but when I tweet it’s automatically relayed to Facebook. Two birds with one stone.

Who should be my friend? Lots of strangers ask. I’ve tried to limit my friendliness to people I actually know–but I don’t want to offend.

If you’re not on Facebook I should explain. Facebook has added one thing life has always needed–an ignore button!

I actually find Facebook reasonably useful. I am watching a community of people I know. Facebook cleverly gives me the opportunity to squelch or amplify certain people without their knowledge.

Now I can look friendly without having to actually be friendly!

I guess there’s also the stalker aspect of this. I know who your friends are. I know where you’ve been. I see pictures from your fun times… and your drunk times. I’ve seen pictures of your friends too.

But I am still in a quandary about who to accept as my friend. I want to be friendly, just not too friendly. Maybe I should take the advice of soon-to-be-former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich:

“I’ve got this thing and it’s f***ing golden, and, uh, uh, I’m just not giving it up for f***in’ nothing. I’m not gonna do it. And I can always use it. I can parachute me there,”

Maybe not.

7 thoughts on “The Friend Quandary”

  1. I’ve found linkedin to be extremely useful for job networking. I’m kind of “easy” when it comes it linkedin. I’ll take anyone that I’m acquainted with in any manner. On that site, just like in real life – the more people you know, the more opportunity there is when new projects come knocking.

  2. You mention people posting pictures of themselves drinking on social networking sites. I’m amazed at how many people post terribly unflattering pictures of themselves and their friends drunk and with glasses and bottles of booze in their hands — especially young women. I suppose that for young women in our culture holding up a glass of bottle to a camera still means (the bravado of) “I’m having a really great time,” rather than (the truth of) “I’m about to do something really stupid.”

  3. @ Cousin Michael: I’m not familiar with the concept of unflattering pictures of drunk girls. The drunker the more attractive! (they are to me, and I am to them!)

    @Geoff: If you add me on facebook, we can play Scrabble. I’ve been looking for a game with ctwxman for years!

    Keith Malloy

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