I’ve been online a long time – since 1995. In that decade plus, I’ve met charming, genuine individuals, and a much smaller number of idiots and fools. Some of those I met online have become actual offline buddies, whom I’ve met in person and visit every now and again.
Grownup people don’t think of those they encounter during their business day as friends. Children do, of course – if I asked my three year old granddaughter if the people she sees every day are her friends she’d agree. This would include the water guy, her other grandma’s hospice nurse, her aunt and uncle, the mail carrier, the lady who walks her dog by the house every morning, etcetera.
To an adult, most of these are simply people.
All of the social networking sites such as Facebook want us to label everyone we know and/or do business with as “friends,†and I think that’s a mistake. It adds another obstacle to overcome in making these sites useful for the general public. Most of us think of calling everybody you know a friend to be kind of juvenile, and maybe even a little insulting, when the relationship is something less than reciprocal.
For example, if there was some sort of blogger’s mega-convention in Las Vegas or someplace, and I found myself in a group of people talking in a hallway. Among these are Roger Simon, Glenn Reynolds, The Anchoress, Dave Winer, Doc Searls, Dr. Helen Smith, and Dean Esmay. While Dave Winer is in fact, my blogfather, and I read the works of all these people, all the time; in this group, probably only Dean would recognize me and count me as a friend.
What if they quit using the word, “friend,†and instead used the word, “people� As in, these are the people I connect with in some way, even if they don’t know me from Adam. I wouldn’t need their permission to say that I read their blogs or whatever, and the people with wide readerships and networks would be freed of any kind of implied obligation to reciprocate. We wouldn’t need to engage in manufacturing friendships when none exists.
I’ll have to think about it some more, but in the meantime, this seems to make sense.
{ 6 comments }
I think you’re overly investing in the connotation of the word friend when all it really is in the context of a social networking site is “contact”. On Facebook you can create friend groups, which can beorganized as you please (family, business, etc.
No one seriously suggests that they become Dave Winer’s “friend” in the buddy buddy sense when they add friend them on FB or they follow them on Twitter, etc. Its just like adding them in your ocntact addressbook on email. Not a commitment or anything. Just a link.
Aziz Poonawalla’s last blog post..a disagreement among jafis
Trudy, I agree, it cheapens the meaning of friend.
And people who are tracking me on Twitter are called my “followers”
Inigo Montoya would agree: “You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means. ”
Inv A. DeSoda’s last blog post..The Assassination Smear 2
I’m with Trudy, and think Aziz misses the point, as Inv brings up – “friend” means something, and it does not mean “contact”.
We have words for levels of (in the German), kennenheit that aren’t that of friendship, and should use them; “contact”, “acquaintance”, etc.
There are plenty of people in my real-world circle that I like (and as far as I know, reciprocate that feeling) that are not “friends” in the proper sense of the word.
As I feel “friend” is a word that really should have significant meaning, I’m reluctant to use it so broadly as is popular.
I’m not sure what I think. I tend to be selective in who I call friends, and yet, online I’m less hesitant to use the term. Which is sorta odd now that I think on it.
Can’t you have aquaintenances, friends, and good (or close) friends?
If I would call someone up just to talk (or to cadge a ride somewhere), I think that person is probably a friend. If I would talk to them if they are in the same room, but wouldn’t seek them out if they were not — acquaintenance. If I would divulge the innermost secrets of my existence,…
I have wrestled with this for at least the last 20 years. During that time, I found more and more people throwing around the word “friend” at an increasing rate. I have believed for a long time that we were only going to have a handful of friends in our lifetime. These are people you really connect with on many levels. They think of you and you think of them. They will look out for you and you them. When you meet again, you pick up as if no time has passed. Friends, for me, mean someone you love.
When I worked with a church youth group I always repeated that because the kids through “friend” around like there was no tomorrow. I tried to emphasize what I said. Friends are special because you mutually care for each other and you don’t get too many of them in you lifetime.
I use an older word, “acquaintance” when I talk of the persons I meet and have a relationship with that is less than friendship but far from a stranger.
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