You have a very pleasant half hour chatting to someone, lots of common ground, good chat, nice bond. At some point the “Would you be my fwend” issue occurs to one of you (although the phrase probably not uttered since infants school and, Lindens please note, sooo needs changing) and another friend is added.
Friends/contacts lists – call it what you will, that big list that appears in the communicate box.
I got ruthless with mine not long ago but it’s crept up to 50+ again, looking down it aspects of “who is THAT?” start to come to mind especially with the copperplate leet names.
You would think that with a list that length, so recently pruned, that my chat tabs are buzzing, that I never have a moment to myself – not so. Like many have remarked S/L can often be an empty place and although there may be friends who claim you among their closest, they never ping unless you do first – sound familiar?
I guess the analogy is Facebook where similar lumpen lists can easily appear. I recently took an axe to my Facebook list – who fell....
- Anyone I couldn’t remember who they are,
- Anyone who was only there by association (ie someone’s ex boyfriend)
- People whose posts wind me up (can’t use language, are offensive*, make racist or homophobic posts),
- People who never ever interact with me/my comments/posts or anything else
I was left with a list of people I felt good about, people I had met and/or interact with in some way.
I really need to embed that ruthlessness into S/L
How would I categorise my current S/L list?
- A few gold standard friends who have been with me since the early days, re-friended by me through all my avatars, some have currently dormant accounts but they will stay.
- A few friends who claim me as close but whom I only hear about from others
- One-time introductions, store owners typically
- Recently added people who have not yet passed the test of time
- The now and then friends, people I used to roleplay with but who I catch up with from time to time after big gaps, the kind that I am there for them and they are for me.
If I look at the rest and think “Would I pay the cost of a stamp to post these people a Christmas card in R/L?” and the answer is no....then I guess that’s my answer
*ie moreso than me!
1 comment:
i'm not sure whether i fit the normal pattern for 'friending' in SL! At present, i have more people on my list than ever, and that comes to a grand total of 21! Of those, 4 are alts of friends; 5 i've probably had, at most, a couple of IMs with; and 2 are spurious noobs who i added without really thinking and have never seen since. i rarely enter into private conversations, even with people i might see every day and, in fact, i can probably come up with about 20 people who are good friends but aren't even on my list!
i much prefer to spend time in the company of friends - yes, sometimes it's useful to be able to chat at a distance, but i prefer to spend time with people. i could probably, happily, get by with just 2 or 3 people on my list and still have many, many people i'd consider as 'friends', on various different levels.
It's a bit of a vexed question really, one that i think everyone has their own feelings about. x
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