Yesterday evening was quiet, so I decided to sign up on Facebook. The whole process was easy enough and I was delighted by the love bombing I received immediately - so many people wanting to be friends! Very flattering so I accepted them all, then went on to create a basic profile. I considered several photographs and decided to use the previously unpublished one from this year's London Freewheel, shown above. Seeing this every day will persuade me to eat fewer pies in 2009, and as an added bonus it also features the mayor, but not too prominently.
I had a bath and returned an hour later to discover some 40 emails - clearly this was going to need tight control, as my home address usually gets no more than half a dozen emails in a full day. Logging on, I found lots more new friends, some had posted photographs and one had invited me to his birthday party - looked good, unfortunately I was busy. I enjoyed a brief online chat with Simon Jones, candidate for Dagenham & Rainham, who warned me about privacy issues.
That got me thinking. Did I really know all these people? What if they said something extreme? Or did something embarrassing? And did I want them to know me that well? Didn't feel so good now...
So back to the 'friends' page and off with everyone I haven't known for months and years. This morning I'm feeling some remorse, after all I know that personally I hate rejection, and I wouldn't want to be befriended then defriended in a space of four hours. So I'm sorry, but I'm sticking to my rule - I'd like to know people personally before putting them on my page. Sometimes the old ways are the best.
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