Friday 16 April 2010

Twitter friends?

This blog is a little more personal than I usually write, but as always the purpose of it is to help me get my thoughts straight. It is not intended to be a moan, I hope that is not how it is perceived.

I recently experienced twitter paranoia, a moment where I wondered if I should use it at all. A crisis of twaith (sorry). Of course I still do, but I need to explore why such a moment occurred.

There are groups of people on twitter who chat regularly, I first joined when a bunch of people from the angry (feet) forum did so I was lucky to experience such a friendly crowd. However, occasionally being in a group can be very lonely when you feel less included. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that you can’t always be central in conversations, even with groups of people you “know” online. Thinking about it rationally once the moment has passed, I realise perhaps I was not that chatty enough on the day in question, a little grumpy maybe.

I also wonder how I can have so many followers yet only a few of them chat or respond to tweets. I go through my followers every now and then and remove suspected spambots, or the ones that are just following me due to a random word, unless of course they look like fun, then they can stay. Surely there can’t be that many lurkers? Not that there is anything wrong with it, it just makes me curious. I don’t tweet anything very exciting, I’m not very funny, it is just mundane every day thoughts, a few links and the occasional drunk tweet. How or why do they continue to follow me?

I know a part of my little crisis was thinking too much, I have a habit of this. I was considering how much people on twitter really know me. The answer is they don’t. A few know more about me than others as we have over the last year or so divulged information and got to know each other’s humour and tastes. But is that really knowing someone? When do you really know someone? Should you attempt such a task through twitter? At the end of the day it is a social networking site, but I understand it is mostly superficial (I have blogged about such issues before, see here). I have made some true friends through twitter, people who have got in touch outside of the twitterverse and been there when I needed them, but we are still getting to know each other properly. I guess it is hard making new friends, as I have a group of friends I have had for many years, new ones tend to not come along that often. I seem to be over thinking it don’t I? I know logically you can’t decide when someone is a friend or just someone you know, but to me it is when conversation is easier in real life, when you feel comfortable chatting about more than common interests such as comedy. I must also remember that they may thinking similar things.

So on the night in question I was lurking (as I often do) and saw some conversations about plans to meet up, it was for an event I cannot attend. If I wanted to go I would have asked if it was ok and met everyone else, I wouldn’t expect an invite, there are too many shows and I don’t travel for them that much. But then I pondered on their interactions, and at that time believed they were all friends, not just people who know each other and meet up sometimes, but true friends. I admit I was a little jealous. After some sleep I realised this was ridiculous. I have made friends through twitter. Feeling more comfortable with them not only takes time, but effort on my part. Effort to meet, to chat and to be less superficial. I also think I perhaps underestimate some of the friendships I have made, it is possible.

I think another string to the bow was that I had discussed on twitter the possibility of me moving to London. I would like to live in London, but there are some practical issues to overcome. When chatting I got a little excited at the prospect, thinking... well I know people, there are all my twitter friends so I won’t be lonely. Then it hit me, the realisation that online relationships and real life ones can be a very different thing. As I have said before, who I am on twitter is an impression of me. I choose what people should know. I don’t always express my frustrations, anger or even my happiness. It depends who I want to know such things. I then thought moving to London was an insane idea, to a city where I don’t know anyone, or my way around and I have no friends. Of course in the light of day, there are people who I could get to know, who I assume would meet me for drinks etc and we would become better friends. I’m not saying I am moving to London but in thinking about it, it is not impossible really.

Having over thought all of the above I realised, I love twitter because of its superficial nature. I can have silly, random chats it is not about how dull or stressful work was that day, or the current family dispute, it is light hearted and fun. I am in contact with some tweeters more than others, but happy to chat to new ones too. It is about exploring people. Fair enough, they may not ever meet me or become true friends, but some might. I may meet some people and they may remain just people I know, but I cannot guess the future. I should just enjoy the ride.

I feel better about it all now, it was a silly moment, it has passed. Thanks for reading. I would love to hear any thoughts.

10 comments:

  1. Intersting thoughts
    I can't think of anything overly witty to say to them I'm afraid.

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  2. I was a shady lurker 'til one night I decided to reply to one of your tweets, best decision I made.. I digress. I've felt the same, a gaping maw of jealousy when the twitterverse has upped and done somnething I couldn't attend, LQC, or the London Improv for example. It makes me angry and somewhat affronted when people seem to be doing "fun" stuff and I can't join in... I think it's human nature. I enjoy tweeting with you and would like to know YOU, not just your Twitter persona as I can tell you're a nice person. Chin up Nic! :) (I'm shit at this)

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  3. Interesting views and I agree with them. It does interest me when people come across as best friends on twitter when they hadn't met in real yet. But with 1 of my good friends, I met him briefly at a birthday party, exchanged twitter and since become pretty good mates who chat regularly and we've met up a couple of times since. So I suppose becoming good friends with people can happen online as it does in a somewhat similar way in real. I def. don't show my realself.

    And with regard to London, I'm looking to move their in 2 years and don't know anyone there or anyone interested in moving there, so I'm hoping that my online acquintances will help show me the ropes and make me feel less lonely.
    In summary: you're not alone in your views and said it well.

    Apologies if it comes across as a strange comment, I'm overtired and have cat sat on my arms/chest so can't see what I'm writing.

    x

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  4. Glad you didn't up and leave! Not strange thoughts at all.

    It can be hard to see plans being made that you cannot participate in - I see that a lot as I always want to do EVERYTHING and a lot of the best stuff is in London. Probably just as well I don't live there or I'd be out every night (with or without other people just like here - If I wanna do something I don't have to have company - it's nice but not essential) and exhausted.

    Treat it like any other social thing - if you want to make friends with someone/some group introduce yourself and see how it goes - make the first move - easier on twitter than in 'real life' really. If 'actual' friends seem to be excluding you - they probably aren't btw - tell them how you feel or like you said just say "Oy! I'd like to come to that". I'm pretty sure you do all the above actually so I'm just on a late night ramble in response to your blog.

    I use Twitter a bit differently to you, I think. I use it to keep an eye on what my friends (people I know in real life) are up to, for the cool comedy tweets - the funniest of which aren't always by the 'professionals', to gather all sorts of information: news, gigs, heads up on blogs etc and to tweet randomly into the twitterverse. I rarely hold conversations on there, just fun or informative brief exchanges - anything more ongoing or long-winded and I prefer email or MSN.

    I don't care if people follow but don't reply - I don't quite understand why as I think I have tweeted everyone I follow at least once unless it is a venue or CERN or something, as there is some 'reason' for following, but I just assume some people just like to lurk or are following but not that interested in actual me. I am delighted when someone interesting suddenly tweets at me though, out of the blue.

    My followers go up and down a lot as I delete spambots periodically or alienate people by tweeting enthusiastically on the leadership debate or suchlike. Again I can't begin to care. I would also not be offended if an 'actual' friend unfollowed me to simplify their twitter experience - I prune occasionally too and unfollow and follow again sometimes if I find out I miss them :) If I thought someone might be upset or just for good manners I'd probably explain to a 'real life' friend why though, not always if they have a crazy busy twitter life or I'm pretty sure they won't give a toss.

    Hmm - good job that heap of thoughtlets wasn't on twitter!

    x

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  5. Hey Nic! I guess I'm one of your lurkers, as there's little chance we'll meet and I don't think we've ever chatted much on Twitter.

    I follow people based on my interests, and I mostly use lists to do it. I follow feeters because you guys are cool and get up to interesting things that I don't get to do because of living half a world away. Is that a little voyueristic? It's certainly a bit vicarious. Plus I get a lot of different kinds of information I'd never think of looking for through the people I follow.

    I think the other thing for me is that I think it's often a hell of a lot easier to have conversations online, and that makes people come across as more like close friends than they really are. Relative anonymity is a powerful tool.

    So erm... yeah.
    d x

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  6. Hi Nic,

    I get what you are saying about feeling left out. Being half the world away from most people I follow I don't really know what you are talking about, have little chance of ever meeting, but it's fun. I don't get out much and it's definitely a vicarious life for me.

    I also only have one 3D friend on twitter, so I can say things that I may not say in any other medium. I like this aspect.

    I do get amusement from your tweets, especially the drunk ones :)

    On the other point, move to London if you want. It is fun, especially when you are young and carefree(That makes me sound far older than I am). When I moved there I only had vague acquaintances, but I ended up with amazing friends. You would only be a few hours away from the friends you already have and not a 24hour flight away, which is a huge bonus.

    Anyway, that was long winded and possibly pointless...

    Trish xox

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  7. I find it hard to interact with people on Twitter because I follow over 600 people. I don't want to unfollow anybody, so I use it for company when i'm home alone, to see what people cooler than me are doing and to keep up-to-date with news/gossip/comedy etc.

    I really don't like getting involved in running Twitter conversations (it annoys the crap out of me). I'd rather just chip in every now and again and usually stick to DM's when discussing gig-going.

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  8. Twitter is really a hard medium to use for proper social interaction. The character limit alone makes proper conversations hard.

    I tend to drift a lot as an on-line social person. No reason other then my own moods and health issues. I do try and keep up with people, and try and say nice things when people need a nice thing said. I appreciate it when I get the same in return too. That said when I first started following feeters on there a few immediately blocked me. No idea why, and I shouldn't even care, but for some silly reason I do. Was it naive of me to think that people would want to be sociable with someone just because of the mutual appreciation of one comic? Probably.

    There are a lot of people who I follow who I'll probably never get to meet, due to location, the fact I have 10 year old who's my main priority and financial issues on my part. I have formed some lasting friendships on-line, though. Some of which have been over the course of eight or nine years.

    Don't loose faith in twitter, the are some genuine people out there who do care about you and your problems. Not everyone can be there all the time, if I'm out my mobiles so old I can only get updates as texts, for example. The good outweighs the bad IMO. :)

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  9. I know what you mean about the moving to London thing. I've been toying with that idea myself, as you know and have sort of presumptuously thought that twitter people (or at least some of them) would become my real life friends. I know that I'd make new friends at work and elsewhere, but part of me thinks that, if nothing else, I'd have comedy-going friends that I 'already know'.
    I think it's greasing the wheels of me moving to the UK though, because I would be very hesitant to move overseas if I knew absolutely nobody. Even if my twitter friends don't all become my best friends in real life, even a few to meet up with on occasion would really ease the transition for my move.

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  10. It's taken me a while to comment because, well, I forgot, but also because for some reason I'm finding it very hard to articulate my thoughts on the matter. Although I do understand what you are saying, it isn't really an issue that I can relate to. Maybe I'm too confident, or not don't care enough what people think of me...but to be honest, it really doesn't bother me what people on Twitter think of me; or most of them anyway, there are people that I now consider my friends, who I meet up with fairly regularly and have contact with outside of Twitter. For the others, I'm probably never going to meet most of them, I have no idea why a lot of people follow me or why they would have any interest in what I say. But if they want to follow me than that's their business. I rarely check my follower numbers and would have no idea if I lost followers here or there. In fact I quite like that people I don't know are interested in what I have to say - my blog regularly gets between 40 and 50 views of each new post, I don't know who reads it but I'm glad that they do...that's why I write it after all.

    For me Twitter is for exchanging fun thoughts and ideas with my friends and Twitter acquaintances and for being entertained and informed by the more well known people I follow.

    And very occasionally I will vent, or scream, or ask for a little support and I feel very lucky that I have people out there willing to provide it. I really try not to do this often, and I have unfollowed a few people who seem to do nothing but moan. For me, it's like the boy who cried wolf - the more you moan and complain, the less support you'll get back in return. And maybe that's a bit hard hearted of me but that's just the way I feel about it.

    For me the tricky bit comes when actually meeting people in Twitter (or other online 'friends') in real life. Because although most of the people I've met have been lovely there is a big difference between chatting to someone online who you can ignore if you choose to, and spending 4 hours in a pub with them. This is new territory for most of us really, and I think it's easy to fall into the trap of thinking you should be great friends with everyone who wants to meet up with you in real life, when that isn't necessarily the case. Just because you have the same interests as others doesn't mean you will definitely get on like a house on fire.

    I don't mean to sound negative here - I have made some great friends through the Angry (Feet) forum and Twitter and I'm sure I'll continue to make more but I just feel like I need to tread a little more carefully when meeting the 3D versions of people. I think I'm very much myself online and other people have said that to me too, but that isn't the same for everyone, and it's impossible to know until you actually meet them.

    As for moving to London - you know that's my plan too. I guess my situation is a bit different with having my brother there (although he might have gone by the time I get there) but I do think you need to think carefully about why you want to move there. I think I do have 'real' friends in London now (some more recent online friends but some much older ones too) and of course there is the comedy viewing potential, but for me I LOVE London for the city itself and I have done for a long time, way before I was a comedy fan or had friends there.

    So, yeah, I don't know if that is really a response to what you were saying or not, and I do hope I haven't offended you, or anyone else, with my opinions...blogging that creates discussion is surely what it's all about isn't it?

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