G
Gordon_Sims
Guest
NOTE: This isn’t anything I’ve lost sleep over or a post about the potential evils of social media but instead is simply a lighthearted musing about some recent odd observances.
Do you ever look at other people’s behavior the various social media sites and wonder whether a screw is loose? The past week and a half or so has left me scratching my head on more than one occasion. It started off with someone telling me how offended they were that I didn’t accept their Linked In invitation. For the record, I seldom look at Linked In so I assumed their accusation had merit, although their reaction to my apparent snubbing seemed a bit over the top. I later found out they had done a mass mailing to the entire company and the invitation was marked as spam and ended up in my junk folder. To top if off, I don’t even have my work email address attached to Linked In so even if it hadn’t gone to spam there’s still no way I would have received the invitation via the website. Needless to say, this didn’t make the person any less upset with me.
A couple days later I was going to respond to something a family member had posted on Facebook. I noticed that there were a few earlier posts, clicked to see them and saw a one-sided conversation between my family member and…nobody. The name of the person was mentioned in one of the posts so I checked my family member’s friend list and couldn’t find the name. My first guess was that this person had blocked me but since I don’t know anybody with the same name in this family member’s circle of friends I just figured they were one of those people who set their account to only be visible to their friends. I didn’t think of it again until my wife was checking her account later. She saw the same post but she was able to see all the replies, including the ones by this person I couldn’t see. The name didn’t ring any bells but now it was apparent they had blocked me. I initially thought it was odd that someone would block a total stranger, but then I remembered an ugly interaction I had with another of this family member’s friends a few years ago. They blocked me and I figured this person was a mutual friend and had blocked me as a sign of solidarity. I was extremely bored that day so I dug a little deeper. Not only are the two not friends, but the only friend they have in common is this family member. I then looked at my family member’s account from my page and my wife’s page side by side and saw that, in addition to the ones I already knew about, apparently half a dozen of this family member’s friends have blocked me. I didn’t take offense to it but it struck me as really weird since I don’t know any of these people from Adam. I also very seldom respond to this family member so for the life of me I can’t figure out what I could have done to anger them enough to block me. No sleep lost or hurt feelings, but very strange.
Then yesterday I got an email from someone asking me why I hadn’t accepted their Facebook friend request. I told them they never sent it and to try again (they’re not very computer savvy). I wanted to double check afterward and I noticed that three people have unfriended me in the last two weeks. Whenever I notice that someone has unfriended me I’ll give my friends list a cursory check to see if I can figure out who it was. There’s several I always expect to be on the verge of unfriending me, and a few I kind of hope will unfriend me, but they’re never the ones who do. I’m also very seldom able to figure out who I lost. This time, though, with three dropping at the same time I figured I’d be able to figure out at least one of them. Not a clue. I actually spend a good deal of time looking over my list to see if I could figure it out and I keep drawing a blank. What bothers me about that isn’t that they unfriended me, but that I lost three “friends” in that short a span of time and I have absolutely no idea who it was. I whittled down my friends list a few months ago so I don’t have a huge number of people left. I’m down to so manageable a list that I can almost recite all their names from memory. I thought it was odd and possibly even a slight bit sad that these people disappeared and I had so little knowledge of and interaction with them that I can’t even figure out who they were. To be clear, I thought I’d done a pretty good job culling the field to the point that the only people left were people I had a good reason to still be friends with. For these three, though, not only was there apparently not enough of a reason to remain virtual friends, but there wasn’t even enough of a connection there that I can even figure out who they are. I even went through those people who I only kept as friends because there’s a slim chance I might have to communicate with them about a reunion in another 3-8 years, and it wasn’t any of them. So not only am I stumped, but the one friend whose flubbed friend request started all this still hasn’t figured out how to send it properly.
Again, nothing serious, but this is the sort of thing one ends up discussing at length when stuck in a waiting room for a few hours too many.
Do you ever look at other people’s behavior the various social media sites and wonder whether a screw is loose? The past week and a half or so has left me scratching my head on more than one occasion. It started off with someone telling me how offended they were that I didn’t accept their Linked In invitation. For the record, I seldom look at Linked In so I assumed their accusation had merit, although their reaction to my apparent snubbing seemed a bit over the top. I later found out they had done a mass mailing to the entire company and the invitation was marked as spam and ended up in my junk folder. To top if off, I don’t even have my work email address attached to Linked In so even if it hadn’t gone to spam there’s still no way I would have received the invitation via the website. Needless to say, this didn’t make the person any less upset with me.
A couple days later I was going to respond to something a family member had posted on Facebook. I noticed that there were a few earlier posts, clicked to see them and saw a one-sided conversation between my family member and…nobody. The name of the person was mentioned in one of the posts so I checked my family member’s friend list and couldn’t find the name. My first guess was that this person had blocked me but since I don’t know anybody with the same name in this family member’s circle of friends I just figured they were one of those people who set their account to only be visible to their friends. I didn’t think of it again until my wife was checking her account later. She saw the same post but she was able to see all the replies, including the ones by this person I couldn’t see. The name didn’t ring any bells but now it was apparent they had blocked me. I initially thought it was odd that someone would block a total stranger, but then I remembered an ugly interaction I had with another of this family member’s friends a few years ago. They blocked me and I figured this person was a mutual friend and had blocked me as a sign of solidarity. I was extremely bored that day so I dug a little deeper. Not only are the two not friends, but the only friend they have in common is this family member. I then looked at my family member’s account from my page and my wife’s page side by side and saw that, in addition to the ones I already knew about, apparently half a dozen of this family member’s friends have blocked me. I didn’t take offense to it but it struck me as really weird since I don’t know any of these people from Adam. I also very seldom respond to this family member so for the life of me I can’t figure out what I could have done to anger them enough to block me. No sleep lost or hurt feelings, but very strange.
Then yesterday I got an email from someone asking me why I hadn’t accepted their Facebook friend request. I told them they never sent it and to try again (they’re not very computer savvy). I wanted to double check afterward and I noticed that three people have unfriended me in the last two weeks. Whenever I notice that someone has unfriended me I’ll give my friends list a cursory check to see if I can figure out who it was. There’s several I always expect to be on the verge of unfriending me, and a few I kind of hope will unfriend me, but they’re never the ones who do. I’m also very seldom able to figure out who I lost. This time, though, with three dropping at the same time I figured I’d be able to figure out at least one of them. Not a clue. I actually spend a good deal of time looking over my list to see if I could figure it out and I keep drawing a blank. What bothers me about that isn’t that they unfriended me, but that I lost three “friends” in that short a span of time and I have absolutely no idea who it was. I whittled down my friends list a few months ago so I don’t have a huge number of people left. I’m down to so manageable a list that I can almost recite all their names from memory. I thought it was odd and possibly even a slight bit sad that these people disappeared and I had so little knowledge of and interaction with them that I can’t even figure out who they were. To be clear, I thought I’d done a pretty good job culling the field to the point that the only people left were people I had a good reason to still be friends with. For these three, though, not only was there apparently not enough of a reason to remain virtual friends, but there wasn’t even enough of a connection there that I can even figure out who they are. I even went through those people who I only kept as friends because there’s a slim chance I might have to communicate with them about a reunion in another 3-8 years, and it wasn’t any of them. So not only am I stumped, but the one friend whose flubbed friend request started all this still hasn’t figured out how to send it properly.
Again, nothing serious, but this is the sort of thing one ends up discussing at length when stuck in a waiting room for a few hours too many.
