friends

 

in my very first post for this blog was some discussion of the very nature of friends on social media. I wanted to reunite a person with his passport and he had over 400 friends on Facebook. I started the process of contacting as many as I could to achieve a result. I got about twenty friends in and the responses started arriving. The first response was probably the opposite of what I was expecting - definitive and abrupt."I don't know him". The next person said she hadn't seen him for years since they were together in Thailand, then another who had seen him recently said she had messaged him on all available media. My mind went into overdrive. Email, fax, Facebook message, homing pigeon with a note on its leg, message in a bottle - just to name a few.

lately I have been thinking about what are the protocols to friendships on social media. Are there differences between you becoming friends with someone as opposed to someone becoming friends with you? Are there limits to the type of and how much information can you send in messenger? I was unfriended by someone for the act of posting about this blog. Others relish the information.

there are a few people I have known for years and we are not friends online. Maybe because we talk so often and if I want to inform them of anything big I will send them an email.

Is there some kind of new hierarchy or a set of standards in relation to social media associations? If so, please fill me in. This goes to bigger questions as what you can and can't do overall. Especially when you know they are they making it up as they are going along. 

someone sent me a link to a person we both know. We both went out with her but not at the same time. I'm not going to expand upon this because I don't want to get banned again. Protocols are so beyond me. Let alone friends.