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I am not sure if this belongs in the computer forum on in "non-romantic" relationships. If it ends up moved, that's fine.
I have a friend or two, ones I consider close, and as of late they never answer any emails I send to them. However, they post on Facebook like crazy. I am probably being petty, because the important thing is that if you want to get a hold of someone that you can, not by how, but me, I prefer "traditional" Internet protocols such as email vs social-media messaging, much as I prefer posting in forums or even, dare I say it, newsgroups (where have they gone by the way?) to always posting everything in Facebook.
I guess it's because, especially if your email is GMail or Yahoo! etc vs the one your ISP gives you, then no matter what your service is, you can be reached by email. That is, I don't have to have a GMail to email someone's GMail, I could, say, contact someone with an .edu email even if I have a Yahoo! email. Also, no matter what ISP I'm using, my email doesn't change, no matter what site I am currently trying out for photo hosting, my email doesn't change. You have lrh@bustme.com or whatever, for life, you can always reach me that. Also, I don't like the push for everything on the Internet to be "real name" based, I like using aliases for things such as this.
Email is universal. Email isn't tied to any "walled garden," whereas if Facebook ever went the way of MySpace (although that doesn't seem likely), you lose everything. By contrast, a particular Yahoo! email address I've had for 16-odd years is still working just great. Email is quick, instantaneous, just like social media messaging, it's not "snail mail" by any stretch. Heck, with my GMail, my Android contacts being in there means my phone has its contacts backed up. and my GMail contacts can be exported all at one time as a file for easy importing elsewhere. Facebook, again, tends to be more "walled garden," which is just antithetical to how computer-operated resources should be.
Why is it, then, that for someone I've known my whole life, all of a sudden email is too much of a burden for this person, even if it's a short one (my emails can be long, but I always tell them that I don't expect theirs to be such), but instead I'm expected to do EVERYTHING through Facebook? I hate it.
I hate it so much, in fact, that I'm considering no longer sharing any of my posts with them on Facebook ever again, and making to where either they are willing to email me once in a while, or reply to my emails (which, by the way, aren't by any means daily), or else they just aren't to be hearing from me anymore at all.
To me, friendships should be cultivated, with people talking DIRECTLY to a person, or in a letter/email etc vs just watching what their posts are in your newsfeed. Now, for someone who's more of a "casual acquaintence" I get it, I truly do. If I had to call or email or even directly message every single person on my friends list, I'd never do anything else. I understand that part, truly.
However, if someone is a CLOSE friend, close as in you & this person grew up together but are now out-of-state and they've even said they'd be willing for you to live in their spare house and pay a lower rate of rent if you need somewhere new to live etc, which is the caliber that this friend (and another or two) are, then why is it so difficult for them to reply to an email once in awhile--you know, 1-2 times a month or so? "Life is busy"--so? You have time to post about everything on Facebook, but an email somehow suddenly is too much? I don't get it.
I don't see Facebook messaging replacing email, and I hope it doesn't. Maybe if some other app could be used to use it outside of Facebook, much as you can use other programs for checking your Gmail, then maybe, but as long as it's the "walled garden" it is now, I'm not feeling it as as replacement for email, and it bothers me that this close friend seems to have all but totally switched over.
0. tl;dr
1. You are old.
2. Make you keep the kids off your lawn.
3. You cannot change people.
0. Too long, didn't read. Spell the world out already, I don't do this "BFF" nonsense.
If that's the case, then that's a key problem right there--short attention spans. Yes, sometimes life gets busy and you can only handle the "abridged" version of something, but some matters and some aspects of life simply don't go over well that way. For an acquaintance, a quick "touch base" that you're over and done with in 5 seconds, okay, but for close people, that's not good enough--and if it's now going to be that way with them, then I guess I don't matter to them anymore and to heck with them.
We're supposed to be friends, this is not a 15-second television commercial, this is not "you have 5 seconds to answer the question" in a game show on television. Jeepers.
1. And how "old" are you, and what does that have to do with anything?
2. Incomplete, garbled statement no one could POSSIBLY understand.
3. Maybe they should think of that as well. I can't change them--perhaps, but then, maybe they can't change me either.
Again--does this belong in "non romantic relationships" instead?
Let me give you what sounds like the perspective of your friends.
I have a casual friend who doesn't use anything but email to communicate online to my wife and me.
Her emails every few weeks are voluminous affairs with 8-10 discrete items, that take a lot of effort to reply to. This is more effort than we usually care to put into the relationship. I'd rather respond in shorter bursts than devote 20 minutes to composing a reply, so the end result is that I don't reply about 1/3 of the time. I have the impression that my lack of a response is sometimes frustrating to her, but I'm similarly frustrated by the amount of effort it takes to communicate to her.
I was on FB for a brief while, and did not like it. Most of my American friends have FB pages.
I communicate with friends via email, my communications are personal and I can also include photos, etc. A few American friends clearly found this onerous. I accommodate them by sending an email once a year, and they accommodate me by replying to that email.
With the rest of my friends I have a lively social life via email. Things got sorted out without anyone getting p*ssed off.
0. Too long, didn't read. Spell the world out already, I don't do this "BFF" nonsense.
Seriously, you went on and on and on. Some things can be said succinctly, and should.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shyguylh
... and if it's now going to be that way with them, then I guess I don't matter to them anymore and to heck with them.
Ooooh my God, some people just need attention.
Quote:
Originally Posted by shyguylh
2. Incomplete, garbled statement no one could POSSIBLY understand.
Actually, that was easy to understand. He was only missing the word "sure", as in, "Make sure you keep the kids off your lawn." [Imagine an old man waving his fist at the kids on his lawn]
Quote:
Originally Posted by shyguylh
3. Maybe they should think of that as well. I can't change them--perhaps, but then, maybe they can't change me either.
By all means, you should all part ways. This is clearly too disruptive for life.
Seriously, you went on and on and on. Some things can be said succinctly, and should.
Ooooh my God, some people just need attention.
Actually, that was easy to understand. He was only missing the word "sure", as in, "Make sure you keep the kids off your lawn." [Imagine an old man waving his fist at the kids on his lawn]
By all means, you should all part ways. This is clearly too disruptive for life.
I don't know. One of the persons I'm speaking of, they have always been great, as good as gold. Even so, they can be kind of fickle. They don't always place a high priority on being reachable. Yet, what's funny is, I can remember a time many years ago when, during hard times, I didn't have a phone for awhile, and I had limited means of checking email, this was for a good 3-4 months or so, so neither he nor his family could call me, and after 3-odd months or so when he did get a hold of me he somewhat admonished me for not contacting them via a letter to let them know I was okay.
Yet, not that long ago, he mentioned how his own mother spoke of difficulty getting a hold of him with his current setup and how she'd like it if he got a home phone, and his reaction was "I'm not spending $25 a month just so she can get a hold of me on occasion, she can just leave a message with the boss etc and I'll call her when I can." I didn't get on his case about it, but I did sort of think that, especially given that $25 a month to him is pretty much pocket change, it would be a nice thing to make that accommodation for his mother. I mean, my mother doesn't do any Internet communication, it will only occur by phone, and even though it would be easier if she did, I accept the situation and I make efforts in terms of periodic phone calls to keep in touch with her.
By contrast, his thing is one of laying it out to where he has what he has and if you can't reach him that way, then oh well, he's not going to bother with anything else, not even an email which he's had for years and which costs nothing and takes, what, 5 minutes to check--even if such means he doesn't hear from certain people, even if they're lifelong close persons.
I am not big on how everyone is using Facebook for EVERYTHING, as if photo hosting didn't exist before and as if instant messaging or the like didn't exist before. Then again, I'd think a friendship of many years is far more important than any of that.
I don't know--maybe I'm being petty, but I tend to think he is as well. I don't know, I love the guy, but gee whiz, what's the big deal answering an email once in a while? As for how long the emails are--they aren't ALWAYS that long, and when we talk, boy can that guy TALK, he easily talks 70% of the time, and I'm totally cool with it, so I figure between his being very chatty on the phone and my being chatty in email, it should somewhat break even.
For quicker contact, Email makes more sense to me. Since more than just social stuff comes there...bill notification, etc, I check it several times a day.
FB? Maybe once. I do use the messaging there for brief communications and not for things I want faster, either way, coming or going and I much prefer a larger typing and reading area provided by my mail box.
Thankfully, I don't have anybody that ignores email in favor of FB.
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