Dear SOS!,
While all my friends gallivanted through European countries this summer, I spent my whole three months treacherously lurking on Facebook.com. I made a crazed rush to friend everyone, in hopes of arriving at school in a flurry of popularity.
However, now my life is just legitimately AWKWARD. I am at a loss on how to go about breaking the Facebook ice in person -- do I rock the "Hey, I think we're Facebook friends" or do I just do the quick turn-away? HELP!
Sincerely,Freaked-out F-booker
Dear Freaked-out F-booker,
Before you get yourself in an angry poke war with Mark Zuckerberg, take a step back from the screen, and analyze the situation at a distance. But first, let me give you some background on my networking status history, in hopes of gaining credibility in my advice-giving.
It all started - back in the day - with Friendster. But after a year of perpetual friend-request bombardment by non-English speaking Indonesian teenagers, I made the switch to the ever so emo/scene/indie/[insert any hip synonym for artsy here] MySpace.com.
At the incarnation of my sign-up, I made the promise to myself never to add another user as my friend. Call it elitist, but I figured it would deter all awkwardness on my part, for it's commonly accepted that the person who does the adding is responsible for initiation of conversation, whether in person, online, or otherwise.
And once Facebook came to the high school networking forefront, despite general fury on behalf of every college student in America, I tried to hold out for as long as possible, claiming I was "perfectly happy" with my 12 picture capacity on MySpace (it leaves MUCH more up to the imagination).
However, with all my friends gloating about how much I was missing out, I signed up for an account, and thus began my downward spiral into a wholehearted Facebook addiction. Like a post-op LASIK patient coming out into the world, I could finally see what all the fuss was about.
In Mark Zuckerberg's cyber-world, however, actually seeing people's profiles required the once-avoided notion of adding someone as a friend. I soon learned that rebellious elitism in Facebook translates into a bare wall, question-marked picture, and one-way poke wars. At that moment, I put my pride aside and went on an adding spree. The floodgates were opened - with 187 freshman Facebook friends upon my arrival, I can tell you a lot about the right way to go about this situation.
First of all, let's get things straight: if you've ever had a five-plus message sesh with a fellow Facebook friend, it is necessary to speak in person upon arriving to campus. Whoever initiated the messaging is, by default, responsible for initiating the face-to-face conversation as well.
Even more obligatory yet are the introductory meetings of poke buddies (sup Matt?!) and picture commenters, for both gestures are deemed far more personal than the plain and simple friend request. If you are just friends with the person, and have had little-to-no communication thereafter, it is not mandatory to initiate the "heyyyy....are you [insert name here, which will probably be Andrew, considering every single person in the freshman class is named as such. Literally everyone.]?"
However, because the triple threat freshman questions ("What's your name? "Andrew," "Where are you from?" "Thirty minutes away from here," "Where are you living?" "South") can get repetitive after a while, the "Facebook is awkward" conversation can actually be quite titillating. Especially since the introduction of the News Feed, I can guarantee you will have plenty to rant about together.
So, my fellow networkers, add with confidence, message with judgment, poke with bravery, and most importantly, tag incessantly -- people love to look like they have friends.
