Day 13

Facebook came up in conversation at lunch today. A coworker who is enrolled in a long-distance MFA program keeps tabs on others in her school/class via the social networking site. In fact, I could see such sites being quite useful for classes--well, sort of. She was saying how she had really enjoyed the site the first couple of weeks, but now she was having a hard time getting into it. The various games--application add-ons--weren't what they used to be.

Wait? Application add-ons? Yeah, apparently MySpace and Facebook both have a ton, and I'm sure Friendster has its share too, though I haven't gone looking for them. Only in Facebook do they seem so prominent. Folks are constantly inviting me to join this game or that application or this group. To date, I have downloaded on application, and I have yet to actually put it to use. I downloaded it because I had just reconnected with a former roommate (albeit not through Facebook but through a good old online search with a follow-up e-mail). He invited me to be in touch with him on Facebook, and I probably felt a bit like I needed to accept the application to be sociable. And maybe I had a little curiosity about the game as well. Back when we'd roomed together, over a decade ago now, he'd played chess with one friend via e-mail. This was before IM and other things were common obviously, and a very slow way to play chess--they made one move each day. The application seemed similar to that, and sure, I was willing to play long-distance chess. But once I downloaded, I realized I would have to have a long learning curve to whatever this game was, and I simply have never ever gotten around to really trying to practice and play. I don't have time for this. Sure, I write a blog--or two or three--but I don't by and large read them with any regularity. I read largely online journals--that alone is enough to suck up what time I want to spend online. I want to play games in person. I want to Friendster boardgame companions, here, in Athens. So with that in mind, that's what I did today. Will my luck hold?

I have at least managed to get one person to start using Friendster regularly, if only to write to me. A third response from that particular Friendster friend came today. (The news of your friends--that is, what my friends are doing--is sure easier to track on Friendster than on Facebook. That is, my friends are doing nothing, save the one who's writing me!)

Anyway, today's Friendster contacts ran thus: one Friendster friend contacted and two total strangers. Other than the followup message from the one user, the new reply market remains empty. The totals are thus: fifteen Friendster friends written, two replies; eight acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; five invitations extended, no replies; fifteen strangers written, no replies (if I keep doing this, I am going to run out of friends of friends--there are only 228 apparently); two profile views.