On friending

[dolorous_ett]

How, generally speaking, do you aquire new LJ friends?

When you strike up an aquaintance with someone new, do you generally get the measure of them pretty quickly? Or are your first impressions ever wrong?

Comments

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

I basically just add people because I think their posts are interesting; they either friend me back, or not.

[zaftig46.livejournal.com]

I usually find new people to friend through other friends - either they post a lot on the same posts as me, or I read friends' friends lists. I will read their stuff for a while before actually friending them, so I don't usually get surprised, but having said that - there have been some fandom dramas in the past where people I thought I had figured out showed an unexpectedly nasty streak I didn't like.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

One of my few really bad fandom experiences was someone whose work I'd admired from a distance, who wrote sweet, warm fic, but in practice turned out to have a hair-trigger temper and very strong ideas of what her LJ friends could and couldn't do.

Odd, because mostly it's the other way round - a lot of my LJ friends who present as prickly are actually anything but once you get to know them.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Sounds a pretty good strategy to me!

[waterbird.livejournal.com]

I've been such a lurker for the past year or so that I haven't made many new LJ friends lately. Previously, though, most of the people I friended were people whose fic I liked, or who I met through some fandom event (like the drabblefest that you and I met at). Interestingly, I met a couple of my closest LJ friends through friending memes -- sort of the blind dates of fandom. :)

There have been a few people I've friended, then later regretted for whatever reason -- usually if their posts became mostly very negative.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I've been more quiet recently too, so I know what you mean. It's much easier to aquire new friends in the middle of a large, active fandom.

That drabblefest was fun, wasn't it?

[waterbird.livejournal.com]

It was. I'd like to get back into writing drabbles, but whenever I do have time to write these days, I'm trying instead to work on a WIP I've had going for some time. I'm afraid I'll get distracted by a drabble that insists on morphing into something bigger.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

My personal take would be that if a drabble's calling out to be written, why not go for it? After all, it's not going to take very long, is it?

That said, I've always found drabbles the hardest form of all - the struggles I went through to get the one I did that time to the word limit were such that I've never attempted to repeat the experience! I admire people who can do drabbles at lot. Verbosity is overrated.

[dolabellae.livejournal.com]

I've been wondering about this recently - it seemed much easier when HP was a big, furiously active fandom, and people were posting fics I could comment on and ask to be friends. Now there are people I've seen posting on friends' LJs whose own journals I've checked out and really like but I feel shy about contacting them. Partly because I post so rarely these days I suspect no-one would get much out of being my LJ friend.

Sorry, that was rather mopey. Feeling in one of those moods this evening, for rl reasons. To be chirpier, I do always enjoy the way you find appropriate song titles to accompany your posts!

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

Hi there! *waves*

[dolabellae.livejournal.com]

Hello! Look, I've even posted in my own journal this evening!

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I get a bit more bashful about just asking to be friends myself. Perhaps I should just be a bit braver?

And I do hope that RL is cheering you up a bit today. *hugs*

[dbassassin.livejournal.com]

Er, my friending policy is kind of weird because my journal is flocked due to rl wackiness, as you know. First rule for new people is I have to have either met them or know them on sight from a con or other face-to face meet-up situation thingy. And even then, there are fandom people I've met/see on a semi-regular basis that I don't have friended. Generally, I friend people who ask/tell me to and we have fandom interests in common. I think I've only friended three new people this year (*ponders*), and one of them is someone I've sort of known for two years.

What I find strange is people who friend me first, then display absolutely zero interest in having any kind of interaction with me (never comment on posts, ignore me if I comment on theirs). Fandom people can be very strange.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Considering the RL wackiness, I don't think there's anything wierd about your friending policy in the least! Though I've only ever friended one person who I met in RL rather than online...

What I find strange is people who friend me first, then display absolutely zero interest in having any kind of interaction with me (never comment on posts, ignore me if I comment on theirs). Fandom people can be very strange.

This has happened to me a few times as well. I think a lot of people with a new journal feel they need a respectable number of LJ friends and then realise that actually you don't have much in common. That's one of the reasons why I don't friend empty or abandoned journals any more.

[kennahijja.livejournal.com]

Mostly I either friend back people who friend me for fic and show some evidence of being in the HP fandom... or I fall in love with people's fic and overcome shyness enough to ask if I can friend them.

Which means that first impressions don't really apply. Some people become real friends, with others I don't connect that much and it stays more of a reading list relationship. Yes, sometimes I realise after a while that I really don't see eye to eye with somebody, but only very, very rarely in a fundamental way.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I'm pretty much the same - I suddenly realised I'd been doing a lot more friending back than actively seeking out friends recently - and now I read a lot less fic than I once did, the imperative to friend brilliant writers isn't as powerful.

And like you, I'm fine with not seeing eye to eye with people - unless it's something absolutely fundamental. That's hardly ever happened to me.

[erised1810.livejournal.com]

oh it's been ages since i last friended someone. thel atest few i all found on one of my friends' lj comments or something along that line. i also used to check around if someone reviewed my fic. i once got this whole spree of friends aroudn christmas 9well no it was just a handful but still0 when i wrote a poem berty bott of all things. andi sometimes add people who then promtply quit their journal or only post when they're in a deep deep depression or something. so sometimes yo uget that kind of bummer but most of the time i pop in and out first and then ask.
that makes me wonder where the hack i found you.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I know where I found you! It was one of mctabby's Friending Frenzies - a happy day that was, indeed, as it netted me several treasured LJ friends...

[st-aurafina.livejournal.com]

I find people when reading friendsfriends, or people who make interesting posts on the communities I follow. Some of my friends are people I've written for or have written for me in fic exchanges. I quite often add people who live in Melbourne even if our fandoms don't intersect, because I like getting to know Aussie fandom people. It varies.

Sometimes I'm a dreadful lurker, and sometimes I'm able to overcome shyness and talk to them and get to know them a bit better. Not lurking is obviously the better way to go, but it doesn't always happen for me.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

Friendsfriends is a wonderful tool - the things you find there!

Sometimes I'm a dreadful lurker, and sometimes I'm able to overcome shyness and talk to them and get to know them a bit better. Not lurking is obviously the better way to go, but it doesn't always happen for me.

Pretty much the same for me. And sometimes I think I'll pluck up my courage to friend, then find I've forgotten the person's name and can't remember where I found them...

[pandorasblog]

Most new people I've friended lately have been from the_elitist_vc - posting on a comm like that over a number of months or years gives a pretty good impression of people. There's also been some who I friended after seeing their comments on friends' journals, and some who I found by searching on an interest we had in common. I don't do the latter as much nowdays, because I found that a common posting style or way of looking at the world has been a much more reliable marker of who I'll still want to read (and who is likely to want to read me) weeks or months later.

The only bad experience I can think of lately has been friending someone who seemed interesting but turned out to be hiding a rather flexible morality behind a fancy prose style. I suppose the snobbish tone of their friending policy on their userinfo should have given me pause, but one particular post of theirs (which could be boiled down to 'why people who think my professional practices are wrong should get a grip and just not use services like mine') struck a nerve because they were actually talking about a situation our family had just gone through. Defriended, with no regrets.

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I must have been one of the common interest ones - and anyone who likes Jan Mark must be a good egg, after all...

As to the dodgy friend, it sounds like you're well shot of her to me. Good riddance to bad rubbish! I hate it when a "them and us" attitude grows up like that - it's always highly destructive. And shows a lack of compassion, among other things.

[pandorasblog]

Yes, you were!

*nods* I think you're right about lack of compassion being the root thing that put me off that person. It's the trait I find makes me most inclined to avoid someone in real life, too...