Note on my F-list

[reviews_and_ramblings]

I don't know if you have noticed that it's months that I don't friend people. It's a decision, I love my LJ, but I know that it can be obnoxious, and since people tend to friend back when you friend them (not always but often), I don't want to force anyone. I had a very bad experience with a person on LJ that friended me back as soon as I friended him (he was a writer and I wanted to follow his work); not only he also posted about me, to welcome him among his friends... to then defriended me after few hours. Reason? I wrote too much reviews and he was not interested... What? My LJ is entitled "My reviews and ramblings", what do you think it's about?

But if someone friends me, 99,99% of the time I friend him back. If you friend me, I hope you know what I'm like and about. And obviously, if you defriend me, I defriend you back... sorry, it's not a vengeance, it's simply that I have a very long friends list, and I prefer to read of people who read me back (or at least I hope they read me back). I have only one exception, a person I friended almost at the beginning of my life on LJ, he is a good writer, he is having some problem, and so I know he doesn't read his friends page. But then he post more or less every six months...

Other exceptions are the feeds, I have some blogs I feed, and obviously they can't friend me back. But to feed them is my choice.

At the beginning when someone I like very much defriended me, I always asked why, I hate to loose people I like. Sometime I noticed it was a general thing (journal who defriended all people), other time it was a mistake (it happened), and most of the time it was something I posted (too many pictures out of a LJ cut)... I tried to be sensible, but guys, this is my LJ, and I can't everytime think to 500 people and more. Some people don't like picture, or maybe have connection trouble, other people like them very much... I like them very much, and I'm not the only one.

So in the end, I believe that the rule, You friend me, I friend you is the best for all. If you defriend me, I don't ask, I defriend you back. I haven't anything against you, it's not a personal spite.

Comments

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I wish LJ had found some other term than 'friends' list--'acquaintances,' maybe. I have come to know some LJ friends well enough to feel they really are friends, but I've also had a few 'friends' blow up in hissyfits in a way no genuine friend would.

I may friend someone because what they write is interesting, but I will probably un-friend them if they get into some interest that I don't share--anime, yaoi, etc--or if they get onto a rant that I find tiresome and insist that everyone on their friends-list adopt that issue as their top priority. "With me or against me" is not a friendly attitude, it's aggression.

And I'm nonplussed when I defriend someone and they write and demand to know why. I figure if someone defriends me, they aren't interested enough in what I have to say to read every post. I wish one could filter who one reads as well as who one's posts are visible to.

I've defriended a few people that I have as friends on my personal LJ, because getting the same posts in duplicate just doesn't make sense. But I don't friend everyone who friends me on this LJ. I'll usually go and look, but what it comes down to is I can spend all my time here, or I can spend some of it writing, and I assume that if someone reads my author LJ, they'd rather be reading a new book.

[elisa-rolle.livejournal.com]

I adopted that rule since I know that mine is not exactly a "ordinary" LJ, and since I don't want to change it too much, I think that in that way I'm not forcing anyone to be my "friend". But still, when a longtime friend defriends me without even a note, well, it still upsets me a bit. But it's a necessary loss. Elisa

[lee-rowan.livejournal.com]

I don't see how you could read the LJs of everyone who reads yours. This is a lot more than the typical journal--it's really more of a review site.