MobileRead Forums - View Single Post

bjones6416 · 10-25-2010, 12:45 AM

During the last Presidential election my sister commented to me that many of her friends' Facebook pages had turned into raving political soapboxes, and she made some sort of wistful comment about how she wished she could "unknow" some of the things that she now knew about these friends. Although I don't do the Facebook thing, I know exactly what she meant. I have different sets of friends -- work friends, spinning-and-knitting friends, childhood friends, online friends. Sometimes the sets intersect, and that's okay, but for the most part different areas of my life are shared with different friends. My childhood friends know all about my family situations. My work friends know about my politics. My online friends -- well, they probably know a little bit about many facets of my life, but not too many of them know everything about me, and I prefer it that way. I choose not to discuss politics or religion very deeply online because if you don't REALLY know me it would be easy to file me into a neat little box labelled, "Southern Democrat," or "Aging Hippie," or "Government Worker,"... depending on which of my posts you had read. And that's my point. I don't always WANT to know everything. If you and I have common ground in what books we like to read or what kind of vacation we prefer to take, I don't need to know that we are polar opposites when it comes to religion. So much baggage is attached to those topics that it can sour even an online relationship, and I need all the friends I can get.

How does everybody else feel about this? Do you want to know?

10-25-2010, 12:45 AM	#1
bjones6416 ↓↓ Skirt!! Earrings!! Posts: 3,394 Karma: 17432172 Join Date: Jun 2009 Location: Georgia, USA Device: Acer netbook, JetBook Lite, Sony PRS-300, Kindle 2, Kindle Fire	Do You Really Want to Know? During the last Presidential election my sister commented to me that many of her friends' Facebook pages had turned into raving political soapboxes, and she made some sort of wistful comment about how she wished she could "unknow" some of the things that she now knew about these friends. Although I don't do the Facebook thing, I know exactly what she meant. I have different sets of friends -- work friends, spinning-and-knitting friends, childhood friends, online friends. Sometimes the sets intersect, and that's okay, but for the most part different areas of my life are shared with different friends. My childhood friends know all about my family situations. My work friends know about my politics. My online friends -- well, they probably know a little bit about many facets of my life, but not too many of them know everything about me, and I prefer it that way. I choose not to discuss politics or religion very deeply online because if you don't REALLY know me it would be easy to file me into a neat little box labelled, "Southern Democrat," or "Aging Hippie," or "Government Worker,"... depending on which of my posts you had read. And that's my point. I don't always WANT to know everything. If you and I have common ground in what books we like to read or what kind of vacation we prefer to take, I don't need to know that we are polar opposites when it comes to religion. So much baggage is attached to those topics that it can sour even an online relationship, and I need all the friends I can get. How does everybody else feel about this? Do you want to know?