Something over a year ago, as I turned 60, I got "plaxo-ed" (that's right: not plastered, plaxo-ed). A colleague sent me an invite to become his friend on Plaxo. That's an upmarket social networking site: professionals, business people, and such like, it seems. For interacting with your "real-world friends" is how it markets itself.
Anyway, I hesitated. "Should I ask my colleague what this is all about?", I thought. No, that seemed churlish. "He's my colleague after all: I'll be his friend". I clicked the link, and then I found that I needed to create my own Plaxo account in order to accept his offer. So I did - Plaxo assured me it was all up to me who I linked with and so on.
Almost immediately I got an invite from another friend. So I linked with him, as well. A few days later I happened to mention to my colleague that I'd had an invite to join Plaxo from him. He muttered something about his address book that I didn't quite understand. I sent a message to my other Plaxo friend, who replied something along the lines of "goodness me, I haven't looked at that for ages". Is Plaxo as intentional in its operations as I was led to believe? Never mind: I exist there virtually happy, or happily virtual, and occasionally remember to visit my site and update myself.
Then, an organisation I belong to decided to have a discussion via Facebook. I thought I would add my "two cents", and yes, you guessed it, I now have my own Facebook...I have quickly garnered quite a few friends.
Yes, I know, I'm a sad-sack, and signed up for unsocial reasons: so I have stumbled into this social networking thing - and I probably seem a bit like a "square peg" in cyberspace. Lest I still seem churlish and truculent, if you are one of my friends on Plaxo or Facebook, be assured I am happy to be linked up, but you'll probably find me a bit short of the cyber small-talk. However, if you "poke" me, I'll stir - if I know I'm being poked!
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