Artificial Friendship?
I was newly struck by the artificial nature of being online after reading the responses on a recent blog named ‘Dinner For Six’.
What particularly struck me was the way some of us – I include myself here – apologized to our other friends for not having them on our invitation lists. Others refrained from giving names at all in fear of offending friends. Is the bond of friendship online so frail that we are too scared to invite some friends and not the others?
If you were to win such a prize in real life and you had 12 friends, would you rather stay home and forfeit the prize so not to offend our friends? I think not. Would you, in real life, ask the sponsor or organizer to expand the guest list to 12? No, you won’t.
You will invite 5 friends without even having to apologize to anybody, knowing they will understand. And you will come back bragging to them about how you enjoyed the evening. After all, the prize allowed for only 5 guests and if they are true friends there will be no ill feelings.
If one of your friends got 5 rugby, soccer, opera, cinema or whatever tickets and does not ask you along, will you be offended? If you are offended then you are not such a good friend at all. You cannot monopolize your friend. Like you, he/she is entitled to other friends as well.
So why do we want to treat online friends better than in real life? Friends who use names we’re not sure about, pictures that may be fake, doing a jobs that may not be true and claiming to be where they may not be. What is so special about online friends that we want to wrap them in cotton wool?
I wonder if you could guess how much time I spend finding the right words in a comment and how many euphemisms I use; only not to alienate myself from friends… but in real life, I call a spade a spade.
True friends take much more to be offended.
Stick around. Friday is still a long way off.
Comments (134)
I am senile. I often repeat myself.
Thank heavens. For a moment I thought you left it for the puppy to type.
I think most will appreciate your light hearted blog and for those not invited to the table sort to speak will probably not care...but it is nice to be thought of...and people in general do not want to hurt others feelings...
please contact me immediately.......a great news to share....
I'm sorry if my blog left a bad taste in your mouth; it was not intended. Perhaps you could tell me exactly what it is that left the foul taste?
I just would like to invite more then just 5 people. That is why i, gave up my prize ticket for 5, invite. Until i was giving a prize ticket for 20.
That is what I mean. You could not just choose 5. What would you have done in real life? Assume this is a very posh restaurant that would normally be beyond your budget.
I will just have the dinner at my home, instead. I have done it before in real life. And also! Speaking of friends in real life, it is the same. But! Also! I don't have 5 close friends in real life. Just 3, unrelated friends. And i do not see them often nor talk with them often. The rest of closeness to me, is family members. I do speak with a few people here by phone.
This is a very real situation. There are times when you cannot take all your friends with you to a venue. Is it negative to have to pick only some. It is the same with picking a team in sport. Only so many people can go in there and the rest must accept it.
When I still had a boat - I sold it in March - I always took the same 4 friends. The boat could not take more and there was not safety equipment for more. There never was any hassles. They were my crew and the others accepted it. Only if one of the regulars could not make it, which was seldom, did I take one of the other 3 along - I have 8 close friends.
One of the others have two season tickets at Newlands Rugby. In all the years he had asked me along twice. Many times I go but I have to buy my ticket while he takes another friend (only an acquaintance to me) along and it has never caused any problems. I am not his only friend.
It is not a matter of choosing between friends, it is about who can go along and who cannot. Good friends will accept it when you cannot have them along.
And forfeit the prize you have won?
These prizes are very rarely redeemable for cash or transferable.
Now there is another example.
When I have a party or a barbeque, I invite all. Many times a party starts spontaneously when a few arrive and we have a good time. If somebody else should arrive later, he just joins in. Nobody was invited; it just happened.
But when I invite for lunch, I will invite one or two friends and their wives - all my friends are married - simply because if you have too many people around a table nobody can hear each other.
Maybe my inner circle of friends is unique. We all grew up together and so did most their spouses.
Yes we had a grand afterparty and my head is still sore.
This discussion have very little bearing on that. This goes about when you cannot take all your friends along to a venue. There appear to ba a widespread difference in opinion. I just feel that friends do not own each other and we should be free to differentiate without spoiling any friendships. We cannot always accommodate ALL our friends.
No problem. I was kind of you to drop in.
When I saw your selection I realized it.
That is the most practical way to do it. No point in picking a set that won't match.
Or will you ask the host to invite your 10 other friends as well? The host may consent but I doubt it if you will be on his invitation list next time.
It is so much fun here and nothing is real. As long as we enjoy it, it is all fun.
It was just a cyber party giving cyber headaches.
I won't dream about having a real party without inviting you.
We're only 14 or so posts away!
Two renowned post-ers here! Will it be a clash of those two posting titans?
Or will a relative under dog surge from the back of the pack to seize the much coveted set of steak knives?
We have a resl nail biter here, folks.
Sheesh!
I don't think this one will get there. This blog has gone quiet now and I doubt it if much more will happen here. A few days ago one stopped dead at 98.
I have tried to install Linux Ubuntu on my one partition earlier but had a problem. I hope it is resolved now. I'm going to try again in a few minutes.
I will return as soon as I'm done.
I just woke up! I've been missing any fun here?!?!?
I wondered where you were. It is raining cats and dogs here and I'm having some connectivity problems. I'm told the rain cannot influence it but whenever it rains I have some degree of problems getting on line.
Did you know ALL electronics works on blue smoke?
It's a very little know fact, but based on sound scientific observation.
Specifically, if the blue smoke is released from ANY electronic device, it ceases to function.
After pulling off an unprecedented daily double, she's hungry for those steak knives to make it a triple crown!
Perhaps (in general) men would not feel slighted for not having been included. But I think more women (in general) would be.
Anyway, that's just my 2 cents.