Help! My Friends Are Poking Me

When the editor of the weekly newspaper invited me to be her friend on Facebook, I couldn’t resist. I had no idea she wanted us to be friends but I was excited to receive her invitation. She is one of the movers and shakers in town and she is a very nice lady. There was only one problem: I wasn’t a Facebook member. If I wanted to be friends with my editor I had to sign up. So I did and now I have 24 friends, some of whom I am well acquainted with, some I’ve met once or twice, and a handful of relatives to round things out.
For my money, it was a lot easier to find friends in the third grade when the kid sitting next to you in class just whispered out of the side of his mouth, “Hey jerkweed, wanna be friends?” I’ll confess that I am bewildered at times by Facebook. For instance, I always thought that relatives automatically qualified as friends even if you hate them. Not that I hate any of mine. I’m just saying. And, now that I’m friends with relatives, they can follow my every move if I’m foolish enough to post them. If my kids were to see a notation like, “Went to Vegas for the day but told my wife I had business in Phoenix,” I have no doubt they would squeal on me. What can I really post that will be interesting and keep me out of hot water?
Some of my Facebook friends post messages describing what they are doing at this very moment, along with photos to burn the image in my mind. One friend, perhaps a bit bored with life, (or maybe he has kid problems too) wrote he was eating potato chips on his couch. I loved the picture, one hand dipped in a giant bag of salt and vinegar chips the other holding the remote. His elderly mother probably isn’t interested in social networking. She doesn’t even own a computer. Too bad because I would like nothing better than to invite her to be my friend so she could see what’s clearly visible in the picture. My friend was getting crumbs on the couch and even worse, he didn’t have a napkin nearby to wipe the grease off his fingers. If the poor woman could see this site she would be beside herself. She’s very old fashioned though so rather than email chiding words to him she would reach for the phone and call.
My friend Cindy poked me a couple of months ago. I had no idea what that meant. I still don’t. I can tell you she hasn’t poked me again but I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Maybe I was supposed to give her a poke. To be honest I haven’t been able to get a full night’s sleep since she poked me, worrying that my social networking skills might be costing me friends.
I have no doubt that my clumsy business networking activities are costing me many fine opportunities. Linkedin, a business networking site geared toward business contacts, is a case in point. Some of my Linkedin connections are also Facebook friends. There’s no place to hide. I have a whopping 32 Linkedin connections. Obviously I’m not exactly a ball of fire on this site either. My friend Don has 149 connections. Rick has more than 250.
And, I’ve already had one very unpleasant experience on this site. I was asked to connect with someone I thought I successfully disconnected years ago. I refused her invitation, an option Linkedin clearly provides. I thought that was the end of the matter but instead I got a nasty message back from my suitor which, in its own way, provided ample justification for my refusal. Still, it must be painful to be turned down. One of my connections wanted to recommend me to others. I refused that too. He said something about my track record that while accurate in every way, didn’t create the value add you expect from such things.
Social networking can be fun and it does offer a way to keep up with people that live far away. I have heard that some people actually get addicted to social networking. They become so immersed in the lives of their friends and business connections that they spend hours on these sites. I am not worried about that in the least. I lead a balanced life, filled with…hold on, It’s my cell. There’s a tweet from Twitterer…Can I get back to you in a sec?

Copyright 2009 Len Serafino. All rights reserved.