Why Do You Friend?

A friend recently blogged on a topic regarding friending people on Facebook. I've thought over it quite some times previously but hadn't mentioned about it until now, since I'm somehow inspired by a blog entry by this friend of mine, JR.

As you can see, he titled the post with 'Who Do You Friend?', discussing on who to friend and who to not. While mine is 'WHY do you friend?' I think I'll be talking on our intentions befriending someone on Facebook.

Some time last year I started to delete people on my Facebook friends list. I think the first time I did it, it was because I felt that these people were like ornaments on my friends list, where I don't really know who they are (needless to say whether we interact or not) and don't really care what they are up to.

Then, I realised there's a group of people who are hanging in between my line of un-friending and keeping them on the list. Mainly because I know who they are (i.e., college mates, school mates etc) and some others, I knew the reason they added me (perhaps they read my badminton articles or for once we've discussed on a topic regarding badminton). But the thing is, if they are my college/school mates or badminton fans/readers and we don't interact, why should I have them on my friends list?

I hadn't been very active on Facebook lately, as many might have noticed. I don't really wish people 'happy birthday' just because their names popped up on the top right of my page. To me, if I really wanted to wish the person on his/her birthday, I would have remembered the day and text messaged/called them on their phones, or maybe sending an MSN wish if the person's overseas. When I wish on Facebook, it's usually because I don't remember (or maybe never knew) the person's birthday, but when reminded I felt I wanted to send my regards.

Online, social networks or so, to me are actually another platform I keep track of my life. Like whenever I say I'm happy/sad or I said I'm doing/have done something, it's because I often look back into old posts to know what happened to me on a certain day in the past. Of course it's also a way to keep in contact with old friends, though most of us don't really keep in contact by interacting often on Facebook.

Then I thought, we may not be interacting, but Facebook does keep people update on what their friends are up to, though they mightn't ask how who and who is doing. Probably they just wanted to be updated on the whats and wheres, rather than to know whether he/she is doing fine.

I don't know, but it's something my college friends had told me that has given me that impression. She said, "We might not be liking/commenting on your statuses/photos etc, but that doesn't mean we don't follow/read."

Now when I think of deleting people, I try not to tighten the criteria too much because then, I'd be deleting more than half of the 534 friends I currently have on the list. Like JR, I've thought of deleting people who know me but whom I don't know, but I wouldn't want to be deleted by those who I have added and who might not know me. So I felt perhaps if we thought of it like Twitter, we'd understand better.

On Twitter, we have Following and Followers. We follow the people who we're interested in, and the people who are interested/want to know more about us follow us. There's no rule saying we must follow back those who follow us. On Facebook, perhaps these friends who we don't know are the followers whom we don't follow back, but since they're all categorised under 'friends', it somehow complicates matter - whether to friend or to not.

Heck yes!

In most cases, I remember who I added and who added me too, on Facebook. So thus far, I've deleted most of who I've previously added for God knows what reason (perhaps we met in certain events and for once I thought we'd be keeping in contact or such). As for those who added me and I know the possible reason they've done so, I kept them; just because I didn't want to be deleted by those who I've added to follow their updates. Perhaps it's a form of respect.

It's just that nowadays whenever I receive friend requests from such people (of the same college/school who I don't know in person or people who share the same interest and would like to follow me - for some reason unknown since I'm not famous), I've been rejecting them. Probably unless I felt I was interested in knowing how this person's (mostly high school mates) been doing.

I always look through the friends we have in common to figure out why people add me and decide whether I should be accepting, but most of the time unless I was interested, I wouldn't bother accepting. I think if people who I don't know had sent me a message first telling me why they wanted to add me, I might accept - lets say it was to follow my updates like people do on Twitter - as a form of respect of their interest. Why not, I add, perhaps, celebs too, because I'd like to follow. So I would think it over if people are there adding me with an acceptable reason.

Spotted this on my MSN list one day.
Two different people with the same display name.

Actually, now my problem is not about deciding who to keep and who to delete. To me, it's more like deciding who to accept and who to not. Like JR is finding a fine line to decide the first, I'm finding mine too, to come out with a border for the latter.

Perhaps if they had made it something like 'who I friend' and 'who friends me' - more like the 'following' and 'followers' on Twitter, it'd be much easier. I guess?