One of the interesting things on the internet is social networking. From MySpace to Facebook, there are a multitude of online services that foster social interaction between strangers and friends and even family. I have taken advantage of many social networking sites and these days Facebook takes much of my online attention.
I love the clean look of Facebook and the fact that, aside from my Mafia Wars friends, I have known and met most of the rest of the people on my friends list. My friends list swelled this past year because of my high school reunion and it’s been great catching up with old classmates. Much of it is just in passing but it’s still nice to reconnect, even in a distant manner. I don’t share everything with everyone, but I also don’t mind that they see lots of the different parts of my Facebook.
Various family members are also Facebook friends. I really do love being able to keep in touch with my family. Yes, I’m one of those people who actually likes her family. And I don’t mind if they see my online endeavors. I link the public portions of my livejournal to Facebook. I say read away! I don’t get to see a lot of my cousins and such, so Facebook allows us all to stay in touch and maybe comment here and there on different posts and such. It’s nice.
I don’t live and die for my Facebook connection. Although it’s a daily stop, I’m not starved for the social aspect of it. I’m happy just playing Bejeweled Blitz or Mafia Wars. It’s lovely getting messages from different people and I do oftentimes “like” certain posts or updates. Sometimes it’s nice to exchange longer messages with people, but there’s really no pressure to be totally on top of all correspondence. You can be distant or personal at will. I like to keep a friendly medium.
Sometimes, very rarely in my case, you get a friend request from someone you’re obligated to friend back. This has happened to me a couple of times. I know, you shouldn’t feel obligated to friend back someone but if you know the person, it’s pretty rude to not honor the request. Right? Right. So in this particular case, I did friend back the person. My only issue, which I kept to myself, was that this person could possibly friend someone I don’t like. The issue came up but I still didn’t say anything about it. The people you friend on Facebook are your business and your business only.
Last I was looking through my Facebook friend list and noticed that someone was missing. Curious, I thought. Then again, this person didn’t really update much, so maybe this person deleted their account. But later, I dug a little deeper and found that the person still has a Facebook account. I logged into my Facebook and tried searching using the person’s email address and nothing came up. Was it a glitch, I wondered? Realization began to sink in and I logged in using a different account and tried searching again. The FFF’s (Former Facebook Friend) profile popped up. And then I knew.
I had been de-friended and BLOCKED. Yes, BLOCKED.
At first I was ANGRY. Dropped & BLOCKED? Over the top much? Who does such a thing? It would be easy to say that perhaps the person, not being so tech savvy, didn’t realize what they were doing. Sure, let’s go with that for a moment. But a person who doesn’t know what they’re doing would just at most drop the offending FB friend, right? How would they know to take it a step further and block? No, I couldn’t give this person the excuse of not knowing what the block meant.
The more I thought about it, the more I realized it was a childish move. And then I wondered WHY. Why did this person block me? A couple of scenarios played out but they call came down to the same thing– something CHILDISH. I hadn’t actually done anything to this FFF. I had to conclude that someone on my friend list or someone on the FFF’s friend list caused the rift. Whatever the reason, I am resolved to not mention it.
But here’s the thing, did the FFF really think I wouldn’t figure it out? I’m not a novice at this stuff. And I am a curious sort, so why wouldn’t I check it out? The thought that the FFF didn’t think I would notice or figure it out just riles me for some reason.
Even though I’ve gotten over the whole thing now, I am still a little disappointed by the rudeness of it all. But, as the title of this post says…
In the end, it doesn’t really matter.
You’re right, Facebook has it’s ups and downs. Unfortunately social backlash is an aspect of these types of networking websites and you’ll never get away from that.
Carry on playing Mafia Wars – it’s the associated fun applications that are Facebook’s saving grace.
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keep going on..