It’s an agonizing decision. To friend? Or not to friend? Facebook is the new flirting frontier, and the decision to make the move to solidify a virtual friendship is a crucial first step in establishing communication with your crush.
It shouldn’t be. Nowadays it seems we spend more time clicking through photos than engaging in conversation. The impact on nascent romance is disastrous. Facebook ruins everything that is fun about a fresh romance. Think about it. With the click of a button a person’s — hopefully not first — impression of you will be informed by some geeky or awkward or hot pictures of you from high school. Or even worse, by that embarrassing mobile upload circa 11:45 pm Wednesday.
Maybe you have a virtual existence that is more awesome than your everyday life existence. Good for you. You’ll probably be even more inclined to strut your Facebook stuff. But even if your profile’s got it going on, a friend request is a guaranteed too much too soon. Facebook provides an information blast. Without any conscious effort you can learn anything about a person, never having exchanged more than smiles and brief vacuous New England greetings. It is a problem when I may not know what your voice sounds like but I know your sister’s name, her school and her taste for trashy reality television. Virtual courtship-creeping can cause real life problems. Internet-acquired knowledge easily slips into conversation inciting at best a hearty laugh among mutual creepers or at worst a real life de-friend.
Facebook destroys that wonderful organic intimacy you can slowly build with someone through genuine interaction and interest. As a social medium, it allows us to assert complete and total control over how we are perceived by others. CareerLAB tell us our Facebook profiles are our own personal brands. They are how we package and present ourselves to our peers. This may seem like a good thing, but it is not. In fact, it is a very boring thing, and it severely limits our actual social lives. What happened to spontaneity? What happened to fresh starts and new beginnings? In a sense, we are boxed in by the online footprint Facebook records for us. Friendships maintained solely on Facebook are their own brand of feigned intimacy. With this ease and convenience, we don’t have to earn our friendships.
In today’s digital world where a work and life balance is hard to come by and everyone is plugged into their wireless networks twenty-four hours a day, it may be hard to imagine a social life without a social network. Even the most basic of human interactions — feeling attracted to someone — has become virtual. Tinder, an app that connects anonymous users who show mutual interest, claims to offer “a fun way to break the ice.” But really this is a debilitating crutch for the twenty-something, requiring no intentional action or courage to initiate romance. We all fear rejection. Get over it. You know what is more fun than looking at pictures of hotties? Talking to actual hotties. Your twenties is the easiest time to socialize with peers and especially to meet new people. Leave online dating and the like for your post-divorce midlife crisis. We can’t afford to lose our basic interpersonal skills out of laziness or fear, especially when it comes to issues of superlative importance like procreation.
In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I encourage those of you who hide under the security blanket of virtual reality to make a real move to let that special someone know they are indeed special. If you feel like love is in the air, carpe diem! Chat with your special someone over coffee. Or better yet, pay for his or her free sandwich at Geoff’s on Tuesday. Or, if there is no special someone, go forth and acknowledge those familiar faces who clutter your news feed when you see them around campus. We all have those Facebook friends who aren’t our reality friends. They are the people you awkwardly smile at — or perhaps just avoid altogether — at Nelson Fitness Center or the Sharpe Refectory. Invest some time and energy in the people you like, or think you might like some day. When it comes to love, convenience counts for little.
Claire Gianotti ’13 is president of the Brown University Luddites. Valentines may be sent via carrier pigeon.
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