The One With the Facebook Dilemma (Pt. 1)

I realized a few days ago, as I was integrating my Twitter account with my BlackBerry, Facebook, not MySpace, and Ze Blog, that there are a lot of ways for people to constantly be in the know about not that much about me. Honestly, if I sneeze, I have a direct line to inform about 1,700 people should I feel they urgently need that information. They don’t, so I don’t, but still.

As usual, I digress.

The updating of my Newsfeed or Twitterfeed or whateverfeed isn’t what is angsting me out today though – it's who has access to that feed - it is the age old, long-pondered over question: To friend, or not to friend?

Cyberstalking is as old as dirt, or Google, but it is definitely the go-to tool for finding out too much information before you should, in theory, rightfully have it. Honestly, do I need to know that my crush LOOOOVVEESSSS Whitesnake before we’ve even shared appetizers? Probably not. But these are the kinds of tidbits of information that we squeeze out from the premature scouring of the social networking sites of our potential paramours.

Now. I try to stay away from this where I can – seeing pictures of old girlfriends or MySpace backdrops of topless girls on motorcycles are things that I’m best equipped to absorbed after I’ve completely determined that the person is single and not a total horn dog. But, it necessitates an answer to the question: When is the appropriate time to commence your virtual relationship alongside your real-life one? When do you click that “add as friend” button without it being too early? Too late?


Think about it.

If you go on a few dates with a guy, when should he have access to the virtual self you’ve set up for yourself online? When do you want access to his? And if things don’t work out, do you dump them online too or are they now forever licensed to know when you update your picture or go from “single” to “in a relationship” with someone who made it past the 5th date? If someone friends you – do you HAVE to accept right away? Can you leave them in friend purgatory until you figure it out?

It seems like a lot of pressure is packed into this pretty loaded action. Inviting someone into your virtual circle allows them access to all your pictures, thoughts, opinions, whatever you’ve decided to put out there. I know sometimes my opinions of a person live and die by what they’ve crafted as their virtual presence, and while my online self is borderline as fabulous as my real-life self, I don’t know if this is the criteria I would like to be judged upon.

More on this later…

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