Facebook: It’s Far Easier To Befriend Versus Solicit Reasons For Befriending

Why would anyone want to be my friend?

I’ve been writing a lot about social networks and friends lately, so I thought I’d ask all my Facebook friends, specifically: “What’s the lure to being my friend?” I pinged my friends as well as posted the question on my Facebook profile page. I purposefully omitted qualifying friends as: online social-network friends; friends in the general sense; or any other interpretation. The result? Five of my 144 Facebook friends responded so far in the past week or so — a revealing number. Based on this exercise, it appears far easier to get people to be your friend versus get them to tell you why they’re your friend. Or, perhaps, I’m just a loser. My five friends who answered also tend to be more active readers and commenters on AttentionMax as well as within Facebook. In other words, they’re more like real friends; I have more and meaningful interaction with them. To all my real friends out there, thanks for being so.

What do you think?