A couple of days ago, I did what had not been done in years: accepted a friend request of someone I don't know, pretty much because he is quite good-looking. It felt weird to do, like I'm way too mature to participate in such things, but I did it anyway. And I did it on Facebook. That's even more rare. Facebook is strictly limited for family, very close friends, and maybe a few acquaintances I've worked with or interacted with for a period of time. And the latter often ends up being unfriended after a period of time of no interaction. Facebook is something important to me, a way of keeping tabs in a convenient way of people I care about. If I get requests from people I don't know, they usually get ignored and deleted. Am I so sharply opposed to bringing strangers to my page? Not unless some effort is made beforehand. I mean, at the very least, introduce yourself to me. Send me a message before you request to be my friend. Give me something to go with. But when I don't get even that, why would I bother accepting your friend request? I don't.
Now this time, I made an exception. A good-looking guy requested to be my friend for no reason I can think of, other than maybe he spotted a comment from me on a basketball post (he has LeBron and Dwyane Wade images and/or video clips on his page, after all) and maybe found me intriguing enough to friend me. And after warring with myself a bit beforehand, I reluctantly accepted. Sometimes you won't know what will happen when you take a chance on something. I'm in no position to generate relationships, not in real life and definitely not on the internet, but I'm not opposed to opening windows of opportunity. For all I know, he may have been from Florida, as he's seemingly a fan of the Miami Heat, and possibly could have been my sneak connection to the sunshine state before a move down there. Yes, perhaps some of it was wishful thinking, but still. That was my thinking regardless. Now granted, he's still a stranger, and he immediately went to my restricted list even after I accepted his request. No harm, no foul. I expected that after maybe a few interactions, I'd get familiar enough with him that he'd eventually move "up" to my normal friends list.
A day later, he messages me. "Hi." Now maybe it's wrong of me to judge a person by their internet persona, but in this day and age, you would think the way social media is and people's constant interaction with the internet, they'd have a decent way of self-expression in the two-dimensional realm. A simple "hi" is...well...boring. But forgivable. Perhaps he's just being extremely careful. We're only just starting to interact after all. Still, I use the same medicine and tread with the same carefulness he was. "Hello," I had said. And then his predictable question followed suit: "How are you?" Safe and casual again. So I attempt to add just a bit more character. "I'm as good as can be, and you?" And a very simple "I m fine" follows thereafter. Okay, so far so good. And still boring. He then asked where I am from. I answer normally, with an added "born and raised" at the end. After a short pause, all I got in return was a "ok." Okay? I wait a bit more and finally ask where he is from. He tells me and I say "cool."
At that point, my interest in interacting with this handsome stranger (which was minimal) had already vanished. I understand not everyone can be a genius via messages, but as I said, give me SOMETHING to go with. You requested to be MY friend after all. And finally yet another predictable question. "How old are you?" And of course I answer. But I don't bother to ask him the same. I don't know. I guess it was simply my poor, pathetic attempt to break up the monotony of what was our version of a first time conversation. I wanted to see if he'd even dive into the conversation with a little more chutzpah and be a little more personable without me having to weed it out of him. It failed miserably. Whether my age freaked him out or he too was bored with the conversation, he never responded back and that was the conclusion of our interaction. It reminded me of the days when I used to do this far more often, whether on dating sites or messageboards, guys asking me very specific questions because they're looking for something very specific. Whether or not this applied to him, I can't say.
Needless to say, I went ahead and unfriended him, as I didn't really see the need to keep him around. Sure, maybe I was overly eager to expect some very interesting conversation with a perfect stranger, or maybe I prematurely removed him without truly knowing his reason for the sudden halt of conversation. But oh well. It's not like we're friends, after all. No harm, no foul. He was merely a handsome stranger who just so happened to have the internet personality of a wall. And not the Facebook kind either. At least those are still more interesting.
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