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Musings on an odd response elsewhere
Tuesday, January 17th, 2006 01:12 pmThere are some odd coves on this Live Journal thing of ours; that should pretty much go without saying, I suppose. LJ is a type of blog, and both are subsets of the wonderful world wide web, a place where, so far and despite various governments’ attempts, pretty much anything goes and the only thing that regulates it effectively is an individual’s self regulation.
You don’t like a subject? Don’t look it up. Don’t like a website? Don’t visit it (although occasionally there is a morbid curiosity involved, like prodding a dead sheep’s carcase with a stick when you’re a kid). Most of us have on our friends’ lists, assortments of people we’ve never physically met, and of those we have met, many are really only occasional acquaintances about whom we really know very little even if we like that person.
So why do people get all proprietary about being on someone else’s friends’ list? If you have never actually met a person, why should he or she get upset if they are removed from your friends’ list? I’ll admit to being put out the first time someone “de-friended” me, and feeling all miffed for a few minutes until a little rationality set in. I have no idea why I was annoyed, I can’t remember who the hell they were and I’d certainly never met them. Since then people have appeared briefly on my “friend of” list, and then gone again. If they stick around for any length of time, I might add them back if they’re interesting, or if I actually know who they are, I will usually add them back anyway.
I think now, I’d only be put out if someone I regarded as a close friend dropped me from their friends’ list, and even that would depend upon circumstances. If they never updated for instance, they might just be closing down their account, or if it’s someone you see regularly you are probably up to date with them anyway.
It depends upon what you want from your journal, I suppose, but I doubt that anyone is ever going to reach close ‘bosom buddy’ status if the only contact is through an anonymous computer screen displaying text. So there’s no point in being upset if they disappear from your journal acquaintances.
Of course, if you take the trouble to meet someone physically, that you know only through their written journals, and then that person ditches you from their friends’ list and changes their email, well, oops! But that’s not quite the same thing, is it?
You don’t like a subject? Don’t look it up. Don’t like a website? Don’t visit it (although occasionally there is a morbid curiosity involved, like prodding a dead sheep’s carcase with a stick when you’re a kid). Most of us have on our friends’ lists, assortments of people we’ve never physically met, and of those we have met, many are really only occasional acquaintances about whom we really know very little even if we like that person.
So why do people get all proprietary about being on someone else’s friends’ list? If you have never actually met a person, why should he or she get upset if they are removed from your friends’ list? I’ll admit to being put out the first time someone “de-friended” me, and feeling all miffed for a few minutes until a little rationality set in. I have no idea why I was annoyed, I can’t remember who the hell they were and I’d certainly never met them. Since then people have appeared briefly on my “friend of” list, and then gone again. If they stick around for any length of time, I might add them back if they’re interesting, or if I actually know who they are, I will usually add them back anyway.
I think now, I’d only be put out if someone I regarded as a close friend dropped me from their friends’ list, and even that would depend upon circumstances. If they never updated for instance, they might just be closing down their account, or if it’s someone you see regularly you are probably up to date with them anyway.
It depends upon what you want from your journal, I suppose, but I doubt that anyone is ever going to reach close ‘bosom buddy’ status if the only contact is through an anonymous computer screen displaying text. So there’s no point in being upset if they disappear from your journal acquaintances.
Of course, if you take the trouble to meet someone physically, that you know only through their written journals, and then that person ditches you from their friends’ list and changes their email, well, oops! But that’s not quite the same thing, is it?
