Kaggers on Face-Friending

Since the purpose of this blog is to explore friendships in a digital age, we decided to each write essays on our thoughts on Facebook, particularly the ‘friend request’, which has become the new way to make friends in today’s’ modern and highly connected world. While we communicate more in the age of technology – with emails, texts and tweets – I think we communicate less. That is, less effectively, less understandably, and less meaningfully. For friendships to form and grow effectively, you need an effective form of communicating. I just wasn’t convinced that it could be possible to make a new friend and have thoughtful conversations with Facebook as the medium.

When I first joined Facebook, I spent most of my time ridiculing it. Everyone friend-requesting people they barely knew, writing on walls, commenting with abandon. I couldn't accept that this was what socializing had become so I ignored it, and with it, my social life. Recently and somewhat reluctantly I re-emerged on the social networking scene in an effort to expand my own social network. Yet I remained skeptical of Facebook helping me make a new “real” friend, not just another face-friend who would post a photo of a cat on my wall.

In some ways, it seems like it would be easier to make friends in this new technological age since you don't have to worry about real appearance. Everything is virtual! Forget making the wrong face, you have no face!

But then I remembered that I am still a three-dimensional being, just a pessimistic one who thought it would be harder to really get to know someone in a forum that seems to cater more to the instantaneous than to the thoughtful. But Facebook proved me wrong. Together, Facebook and I worked out our differences and solved our (my) problems. I owned up to being too dismissive of social technologies, and Facebook showed me it still cared by not cancelling my inactive account.

Here are the steps to making a new, real friend in this scary technological age:

1. Identify a suitable candidate
2. Friend-request them
3. Wait, growing paranoid with each passing moment that the friendship is not confirmed
4. Confirmation received, celebrate

It is at step #4 that the friendship process ends. I mean, in the Facebook word. In the real world it is possible to go further by:

5. Initiating an e-conversation
6. Taking an interest in the new scary person
7. Establishing regular contact that provides mutual enjoyment
8. Moving the friendship out of the virtual world and into the real world

Step #8 is scary but for the friendship to grow you must attempt a live encounter. This is a big step so don't rush. Having a real conversation is much more awkward in real time than e-time. Don't feel discouraged upon meeting your new friend and realizing that you are unable to make eye contact. And remember, conversation lulls are normal and how it used to be before internetting took over socializing.