I never had Facebook before. It had to do in part with things I’d rather not go into. But anyways…
I now can have a Facebook account, and that seems to be the normal thing to do, but do I need one?
I rarely talk to my own family, and I literally have no friends. I have heard that prospective girlfriends like to look to Facebook for a “read” on a guy. Is that true?
I’m an introvert, never done Facebook, and have been out of the dating scene for like a decade, so have no idea how important it is. I’m totally lost, guys.
Fair enough, I guess. For whatever reason, my estranged wife was really weird about me getting an account. I went so far as to start signing up. I told her and she got really weird. It was like I was stepping on her turf, or something. It was an awkward step for me to begin with, so I just didn’t go through with it. Part of the reason I’m single now, I guess…
Don’t put any info on it tht you want to keep private. As long as you follow that, it’s a harmless way to keep in touch with people. Even if you’re not really friends in the normal sense, it can sometimes be interesting to see what people you used to know are up to these days.
It is an absolute must. Everybody’s doing it these days.
Ok, in all seriousness, be aware of the privacy issues, as well as the fact that they basically own the content you post. Hmm that sounds like another place you are familiar with.
Treat it as you would the SDMB. If your feelings lean toward the ‘Facebook is teh evil’ crowd, I’d suggest reevaluating your participation on the Internet in general.
I don’t think I’ve ever heard a person turn down a date because that person isn’t on Facebook, so I’d say your fear about it hurting you in that respect are unfounded.
But I do know a couple of people that met each other in a casual setting, friended each other on Facebook, kept in touch that way, and then later ended up dating. So in that respect, I’d say it might help in dating. Not necessary, obviously, but possibly helpful.
And as already stated, as long as you don’t put anything on there you don’t want to be publicly known, there isn’t any harm in it.
The only reason I can think for you to get one is so you can control that part of your online profile since, as you point out, people unfortunately think to search for people on there.
Not having a profile at all is suspicious to the very dumb and sometimes you need things out of the very dumb. So if I were you I’d just make one and stick the very basic info on it that will make it personally identifiable if someone looks you up. A clear picture, full name, and high school and college graduation dates should be fine.
Using it for dating is a different game, but you seem to have indicated that you don’t want to do that. On that one I can’t help you anyway. I have some friends who date people that they meet on Facebook and meeting new people on Facebook is not at all my use case for it. I just use it to keep all the people I’ve met in “real life” neatly corralled.
No, no and one hundred thousand more times, N-O NO!
If you haven’t been into all this time, then starting now is you treating it as some sort of necessity as opposed to a genuine interest (for all you know you’re only ‘interested’ because you weren’t allowed to have it before).
First thing to get out of your head is that Facebook is a place to meet women for the purpose of anything remotely romantic.
Anyone who is a relationship because of Facebook directly is a loser.
I don’t mean that your Facebook says you like cars for example, and you attended a car show because you belong to a group on Facebook - met someone there who also was on your Facebook and THEN fell in love - that’s different.
Second thing to do is go out and meet some women, or do the other lazy thing besides Facebook, which is play an MMORPG!
Personally, I only have a Facebook account to keep up with the family and a couple friends, because that is how they choose to communicate nowadays. Otherwise I have no use for it.
I keep minimal info on it, they know who I am.
If the above doesn’t apply to you, I wouldn’t bother.
The point is that here on the SMDB, and indeed on most of the Internet, you can have anonymity and privacy, and Facebook makes that very difficult, if not impossible. It is the antithesis of everything I love about the Internet, and it’s “walled garden” approach is a return to the Bad Old Days of Compuserve and AOL.
I think, if you look closely, the people who object most vociferously to Facebook are those who have been on the Internet the longest. It’s fans seem to be those who don’t value privacy, or grew up in a social group that does not appreciate it.
It depends. What do you hope to accomplish by using Facebook? If you want to network, I would use LinkedIn. If you want to market products, I would definitely use Facebook, just because it’s free and has a large user-base. If you want to keep in touch with friends, just remember that everything you post on Facebook is property of Facebook.
You won’t make friends on Facebook unless you already have friends. If you’re seeking a relationship, meet people in real life by joining clubs or just getting out there. You can make friends at Starbucks or any place really as long as you’re willing to socialize. Joining a sports team when I was in high school really helped me make friends. All my other friends I met randomly by just socializing.
facebook is for keeping track of your friends. If you have loads of distant friends from different times in your life you can keep in touch without it being a huge committment on either side. You can look at pictures of their kids…what they’re eating to dinner…see that they quit investment banking and became a licensed obstetrician… or whatever… if you want to and at your own pace. My local friends often use facebook to plan gatherings so its handy that way too.
Seeing as you have no friends, there doesn’t seem to be much point for you.
For business networking, I prefer Linkedin, in fact I’ve rejected facebook “friendings” from colleagues (with an explanation) and set privacy settings to max because I don’t want my Facebook and worklife to entertwine outside my circle of actual friends.
Facebook is more about keeping in touch with friends you used to have in my opinion.
If you want to MAKE friends online you use tumb1r.
If you want to make friends in real life don’t use tumb1r or you will be so engrossed in it you’ll go for days without bathing and never leave the house.
I had some luck meeting people socially with meetup.com - there was a knitting group I went to a couple times I enjoyed but it was held about a half hour away and getting there and back was a hassle. I heard in Berkley there’s a bar or coffee shop with lots of board games and stuff which sounds like an IDEAL way to meet people and make friends. Maybe you could see if there’s anything like that in your area?
If you aren’t using a proxy or a tor client, you probably don’t have as much anonymity as you think.
Facebook is public. If you can’t trust yourself to behave in an unembarrassing way in public, or can’t filter out those friends that have trouble in that area, then Facebook certainly isn’t for you.
Unsurprisingly, people who act like morons or attention whores in public act that way on Facebook.
A lot of people find it useful for a lot of different social uses. Certainly not for everybody, but also not a tool of the devil.
