23 Mo-Vember 2009 (Monday) - Facebook "Friends"

I noticed that a very good friend of mine added someone to his Facebook friends list yesterday. That someone being “Alexei Beetroot”. From watching the “recent activity” bit on Facebook, I suspect that Alexei Beetroot has got himself listed on one or two people’s friends’ lists purely because those people have seen he’s on my list, and have assumed that any friend of mine is mostly harmless.

Well, I don’t think for one minute there’s anything harmful about this bloke. But if any of my loyal readers have added this bloke on that assumption, can I just point out that I have no idea who he is. I don’t know him from Adam. I added him to my list because he asked me, and because other good friends of mine had him on their lists. And I made the assumption that any friend of one of my friends was mostly harmless. I wonder if my real friends actually know this bloke Alexei Beetroot? Or did they add him because he asked, and they saw he was on the lists of other people that they trusted?

This is certainly the case for one Henry Dougal, who I added to my list a while ago. All of our mutual friends were kite fliers. I’ve since found that although the chap is a bona-fido kite flier, he’s now adding himself to people from my list that I know from the astro club. He’s commenting on their posts and activities as though he’s their best pal in the world. And (as with the comments he puts on my Facebook page) it’s painfully obvious he doesn’t know the people he’s commenting on. At all. All he has in common with them is that they are a friend of a friend of someone he once met on a kite field. A rather tenuous connection, wouldn’t you agree?

I’m assuming (hoping) there is nothing sinister about having an epic list of friends on Facebook.? I’m hoping that such a web of people can’t be used for nefarious purposes? Whilst I’m rather sure it can’t, it’s made me look at my own list of Facebook friends.

I have one hundred and eighty eight “friends” on Facebook. Many are actual “friends” that I see at least once a week (if not more). There are people from work on my list who I also see daily. There’s a lot of “old friends” who I’ve known for years, but due to circumstances, these days I see very infrequently. Some maybe only once a year, but Facebook enables us to keep in touch. There’s a load of people I know through kite flying. Not a hobby I do very much these days, but it’s good to keep up with people I’ve met on the flying fields. There are a respectable number of people I know through the astro club. Swapping on-line insults makes the monthly astro club meetings that bit more fun. There’s a selection of various cousins, nephews, aunts, uncles and various in-laws on my list too. Which is a great thing. Rather than trying to catch up with everyone at one at all-too-infrequent family reunions, Facebook allows us to keep in touch daily.

And then there are the last fourteen people. I have absolutely no idea who these people are. Who are Alexei Beetroot, Henry Dougal, Mark Gary, Barrington Priest and Alistair Greenway? Nearly ten per cent of the people on my list are people that I don’t think I’ve ever met, either in person or on-line. Should I take them off my list…?

And a reminder to my loyal readers that as the beard enters it’s last week, you can sponsor the thing either with cash straight to “Yours Truly”, or on-line here.