One Man's Tweet Is Another Man's Bleat

When I saw her face, slanted jaw open in the common ‘I’m dancing at a party’ position, arms up in the air and skirt riding high, I cringed. Twice now she had passed me by on the street as though she didn’t know who I was, but she kept me hanging on as a Facebook friend.

Yet I didn’t want to unfriend her. Since we did run in the same circle, I wanted to avoid the awkward exchange of glances that subtly say, “Yeah. I know we’re officially not friends anymore.”

So I hid her from appearing in the Facebook stream of updates from other friends, family, co-works and random people I decided to add that day.

This is how I judge relationships now. I keep my profile private because I know it drives some stalkers crazy, and it’s my last ha-ha-you-can’t-have-it moment with them.

And while some prune their friends list on a regular basis, I usually wait for someone to unfriend me – that is until I experienced my first social media argument.

“Where the Hell is the unfriend option?” I thought to myself after a friend’s comment on Facebook sent me into a momentary rage.

It was the day of the Mavs championship, and we were riding home from the American Airlines Center. I saw someone post this update, “Seriously, what drives one to add their meaningless voice to the anthem of meaningless accolades?”

Being someone who had just posted multiple cheers of glory for the Mavericks, I felt I had no choice but to reply.

“Uh – cuz it’s fun… And we share various elements in our lives… So why not this?”

“There’s much to be said for a signal-to-noise ratio,” the commenter came back.

Jim had just posted a deep comment about how our collective cheers had driven the Mavs to victory, and in wanting to reflect his love of the Mavs, I wrote back, “Yeah – it’s called ‘trending.’ When so many people care enough they want to share, add to the noise, they collectively become something bigger.”

I didn’t want to assume my Facebook friend knew what trending was, because the truth was I didn’t know much about him. Our relationship extended to causal comments on occasional posts. When I tried to think back to how I knew him, a vague memory of Dallas was all I could drum up.

The next afternoon he posted his response. “That was literally the rudest thing anybody has ever posted to my Facebook wall.”

I gasped, reading the comment aloud to Jim. I thought I was being harmless, and I thought he was trying to a pick a fight in the first place.

I scrolled up and down his profile on my Blackberry, looking for the option to unfriend this person I had never met in real life. Frustrated, I fired back, “My comment? Really? No way. I didn’t mean to be rude. Did you?”

His first response was an explanation and Jim told me not to answer again. But minutes later, while I was still trying to find the unfriend option, a second comment appeared. “I mean to play devil’s advocate. I don’t mean to troll or be a dick.”

“Really, dude? You could have surprised me.” That’s how I wanted to answer after being accused of purposely trying to throw shade his way.

Again Jim told me not to engage, but after reading the second comment, I figured neither of us wanted to engage in an online argument, so I replied, “Well I meant to poke back and joke around…” The ellipse implied the apology.

“Right on, please forgive me for being hypersensitive… One person’s trend is another’s bleat? :-P ” he wrote.

I calmed down, looking at my phone and realizing I had just survived my first online argument with a man I had never met in real life. His voice is a figment of my imagination.

“Forgiven,” I replied. “Please forgive me for the late night comments.”

This is something I have come to accept in my life – conversations with people I have only known through square (sometimes rectangular) photos and text.

Recently I had a great conversation with a stranger on the phone (happens all the time in my job). “Are you on Twitter,” I ask him. “No, but thanks,” he replied, understanding that I wanted to keep in touch.

And so this is how I have come to define my relationships in real life. I expect colleagues to have enough respect to at least do my the courtesy of a follow back on Twitter.

I take it as a clear sign that you are uninterested in being friendly if we’ve known each other for a while and still aren’t Facebook friends. This is often a forgivable offense with the, “Are we Facebook friends? I thought we were Facebook friends. Why aren’t we Facebook friends?” exchange. (Supervisors, sources and the technologically inept are also excused for not extending the friend request.)

If you have defriended me, I will only take it personally if you are family.

And only those on my ‘Cool List’ are subjected to read what I really think.

These are the new parameters of my social life.