I don’t even know you

June 24, 2007

There’s a ton of debate about Internet relationships. I’m thinking about my current (and always changing) interpretation as I branched out in Facebook this past week. I asked for business friendships with several people I would best categorize under the I don’t even know this persona category among categories that are mostly non-business focused. Anything else could be viewed as presumptuous right? But really, I don’t want to categorize someone that way. I mean what is that? ‘Hi Kelly! I don’t even know you but let’s be friends! It’s silly.

Personally, I’m cool with accepting and asking for business friendship with people in the education space that I haven’t met or worked with but am sure not everyone feels the same way. Some probably accept friend requests saying, ‘OK I’ll be friends even though I don’t even know you because I don’t want to be an a-hole and reject you.’

See, I feel friendship online from people who are supporting me, informing me, educating me, and touching me with personal stories. And, to those people that have agreed to befriend me I thank you. To those who didn’t want to be an a-hole, you have my permission to tell me to get lost. I’ve got virtual elephant skin.

How does this play out in organizations? Can you imagine saying you’re friends with someone you “hooked up” with at work within the corporate online community? That’s what the grapevine is for ; ). Do I publicly ask for friendship with the senior execs or is that presumptuous? Does that make you an online suck up? Better think about the categories if they’re configurable. Wouldn’t it be funny (but horribly unprofessional) to have? How do you know corporate categories like sucked up to, got drunk with at golf outing, secretly seeking to take over their job, sabotaged on last project, can’t stand this person, etc. I inappropriately digress.

According to whoever wrote the definition on Wikipedia, friendship is a term used to denote co-operative and supportive behavior between two or more humans. In terms of my befriending behavior within social networks, that limited first-line definition works for me. If I only ‘know’ you through the Internet do I know you at all? Yes. But where’s the category for I-don’t-even-know-you-(but I’d like to)-but-not-in-that-way-if -you-know-what-I-mean and it’s OK if you feel differently because I’ve marked the elephant skin checkbox?’

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  • http://www.kwhobbes.edublogs.org/ Kelly Christopherson

    Wow! Made the blog! “I’m as star, I’m a star” I like your categories better than the one’s on Facebook. I’ve never “hooked up” with anyone and although I “know” most of the people, I’ve never met them. I have said no to some people. If, after checking out their profile, I suspect they are just “friend” hunting, then I say NO. I’ve run across the same kind of thing over at Ning.com with the different groups of which I am part. I think that it is the only way to do this at this time. However, it would be nice to be able to accept friendship once and then have that trasnfer to other groups. Like an OpenID where your friends information is stored and once you join a group, all the people you know are just automatically added so you don’t have to go through the whole thing again. As each person on the list joins, they are added to the list. That would be very cool. Wonder if that is possible? Maybe here’s my chance for more fame and fortune! Bah, just remembered, I can’t code! Maybe you have someone at Brandon Hall who could do this? I tend not to send a whole bunch of “friend” requests but look for people who I have met and then request a friendship. It’s not that I don’t want new friends but one must be careful nowadays. Thanks for the invitation. See you on Facebook!

  • http://www.kwhobbes.edublogs.org Kelly Christopherson

    Wow! Made the blog! “I’m as star, I’m a star” I like your categories better than the one’s on Facebook. I’ve never “hooked up” with anyone and although I “know” most of the people, I’ve never met them. I have said no to some people. If, after checking out their profile, I suspect they are just “friend” hunting, then I say NO. I’ve run across the same kind of thing over at Ning.com with the different groups of which I am part. I think that it is the only way to do this at this time. However, it would be nice to be able to accept friendship once and then have that trasnfer to other groups. Like an OpenID where your friends information is stored and once you join a group, all the people you know are just automatically added so you don’t have to go through the whole thing again. As each person on the list joins, they are added to the list. That would be very cool. Wonder if that is possible? Maybe here’s my chance for more fame and fortune! Bah, just remembered, I can’t code! Maybe you have someone at Brandon Hall who could do this? I tend not to send a whole bunch of “friend” requests but look for people who I have met and then request a friendship. It’s not that I don’t want new friends but one must be careful nowadays. Thanks for the invitation. See you on Facebook!

  • http://eduspaces.net/vinall/weblog/ Joan Vinall-Cox

    I like what you say and what Kelly said. I don’t automatically “friend” back; I tend to “friend” people with interesting blog postings and profiles. And I don’t automatically feel friendly towards those whom I “friend” and whose blogs I follow. There’s a tone or whimsical quality that attracts me and allows me to feel that I would enjoy this person’s company. But who knows until they actually meet. And maybe I’m just replicating my introverted social habits online;->

  • http://eduspaces.net/vinall/weblog/ Joan Vinall-Cox

    I like what you say and what Kelly said. I don’t automatically “friend” back; I tend to “friend” people with interesting blog postings and profiles. And I don’t automatically feel friendly towards those whom I “friend” and whose blogs I follow. There’s a tone or whimsical quality that attracts me and allows me to feel that I would enjoy this person’s company. But who knows until they actually meet. And maybe I’m just replicating my introverted social habits online;->

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