Writing a little paragraph about each of your friends

[pne]

aajwind recently participated in a meme asking users to write a short paragraph or so about each of your LiveJournal friends.

It was interesting to read them, the way he described how different people are special to him or what he things about his relationship with that person—how it was, how it is, and how he'd like it to be.

I'm not sure whether I could come up with anything so eloquent about my friends list. (Also, I have nearly twice as many users on my friends list, so it'd take even longer to write.)

But still. I have quite a few people on my friends list, and for a variety of reasons.

Oh, and another thing I thought of while I read his entries is the number of support people he's friended. It… made me a little bit jealous that he's good friends with some of the people he is, at least one of whom I'd friended but who didn't friend me back. And I'm not friends with a number of other support people who seem to be most excellent, judging by his description, because I didn't friend that many people from support. I still have a fair number of support people on my list, though. Hm. And a long enough friends list that I'm not too seriously tempted to add many more people just now.

*thinks* maybe another reason I'm a bit uneasy about participating in the meme is that I've friended different people for different reasons and I wouldn't consider all of them equally good friends. Some I've friended because they're interested in similar things to me, or because they're part of a group I feel I belong to (e.g. conlanging)—not specifically because I read their entries avidly. Some of them don't even update much or at all, using the account only to comment on entries or to read Friends Pages, or having essentially abandoned it after only a post or three. So there's not a whole lot I can say about them.

And writing something about only some of my friends might offend those I leave out—or even those I include, if I can't come up with something meaningful and deep about them. Or so I think.

Comments

[aajwind.livejournal.com]

Here's the thing:

I treat my friends list differently from most people. This is why I've been behind the whole separation of friends lists into trust lists etc. movement. I look at my friends list as a compilation of either (a) friends or (b) people whom I'd like to be friends with. Does that make sense? I don't friend people because their journals interest me and I don't defriend people because their journals don't interest me. Even though it may seem illogical, to me at least, a friends list is a social network of people who I'd consider to be friends.

What made this meme easy, albeit exhausting, for me to do is the fact that everyone on my friends list is someone who I've made an effort to get to know better and, well, befriend. I talk with people on my friends list. I read their entries. I comment. I email. I instant message. I try to get to know them and try to have them get to know me. For this reason, I've made some awesome friends online. :) A lot of the support people I'm friends with now are people who originally hated me. Gem, Ike, Kristan, Jenn, Rob, Ashley, Emma, ... none of these people could stand me when we first met. But, I was persistent, and they got to know me, and I changed, and we became friends. It's funny how those things seem to work out.

That's what friends are for

[pne.livejournal.com]

I treat my friends list differently from most people. This is why I've been behind the whole separation of friends lists into trust lists etc. movement. I look at my friends list as a compilation of either (a) friends or (b) people whom I'd like to be friends with. Does that make sense? I don't friend people because their journals interest me and I don't defriend people because their journals don't interest me. Even though it may seem illogical, to me at least, a friends list is a social network of people who I'd consider to be friends.

Yes, that makes sense to me—and it also explains how you were able to come up with the descriptions.

I think another reason I'd have a hard time is that I treat my friends list primarily as a watchlist—a list of journals to read. Which is why I read some users that I'm not particularly friends with and drop other users whom I like but whose journals I don't read. So the match is not very good.

Plus I'm not very overtly social anyway so I'm slow to try to make friends with people, though I like being friends… if that makes sense.

What made this meme easy, albeit exhausting, for me to do is the fact that everyone on my friends list is someone who I've made an effort to get to know better and, well, befriend. I talk with people on my friends list. I read their entries. I comment. I email. I instant message. I try to get to know them and try to have them get to know me.

I think that is something very good.

For this reason, I've made some awesome friends online. :)

And that sounds good, too. I'm happy that worked out for you.