This is Doing my Head in
February 22nd 2012 21:00
Over a year ago I got a Facebook friends request from Vicky, a muso friend of Brett’s. At first, I could see her profile just as she could see mine. Then, slowly over time, I could see less and less of her profile. She also stopped replying to my emails, even though she was the one who started contacting me in the first place and inviting me to her gigs. When I gently broached the subject, she said it was because she was being hassled by someone. Fair enough. After all, Brett aside, she hardly knows me. That said, why send me a friends request in the first place?
“I don’t get this Facebook stuff,” said technologically challenged Fred. “Why not just unfriend her?”
“This sounds shallow but she performs in a band. How cool does it look to have a muso as one of my Facebook friends? And it’s not like I dislike her, even though I find her behaviour baffling. What I don’t get is why she wanted to be Facebook friends with me in the first place.”
But over time, I did think about unfriending her. And then the crunch came. Just after Christmas she wrote something complimentary on Brett’s wall. I ‘liked’ it and wrote “I second that.” Several hours later, I noticed I could no longer see her post on his wall. I could not believe she could get so funny over such an innocuous comment. It wasn’t as if I had said anything inappropriate. And not only that, she was still able to see my stuff. Did it ever occur to her that I found the situation unfair?
“I thought the whole point of being Facebook friends is like you show me yours, I show you mine,” I grumbled to Fred.
I then remember Brett telling me that Vicky liked to put all her Facebook friends under different groups, with each group having varying levels of access to her profile. I Googled how to do this and put her under the restricted category. I feel ambivalent about doing this because it’s almost like unfriending her. On the other hand, that’s exactly what she’s been doing to me so why should I worry about her feelings?
Fred now has internet access at home but he is far from an expert. “I’m still not going to be in Facebook,” he said. “I just don’t see the point. As for you and Vicky, it sounds like too much like hard work.”
Tell me about it.
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