A small, but common related occurrence:
When you are checking out at a grocery store, or sometimes at fast food joints, they’ll ask you to donate $1 to charity. Of course it is some sub-optimal charity, but the looming discomfort of saying no factors in far more than it should. Plus, it is really hard to tell some random person “sorry, but the utilon-to-dollar ratio is insufficient”.
It seems to generalize to a category of 1-of things that arise in social situations. You know it is sub-optimal to along, you know it would be uncomfortable to speak up, but (at least personally) you find it difficult to gauge the actual cost of doing so (in socialons), and wonder if you aren’t just overthinking the whole thing—by which point, of course, the decision is already in motion.
I have a kind of embarrassing one, but that’s kind of the point of this discussion so here goes.
For some reason I’ve always had an aversion to social networking websites. I remember when all my peers used xanga, then livejournal, then myspace, and now facebook, and I always refused to use them whatsoever. I realize now though, that they represent a massive utility that I desperately need.
I am worried though, about starting new. Maybe I’m being overly paranoid, but it seems that having few friends on such a website signals low status, as does getting into the game this late.
So should I just create an account and add every single person I am even tangentially acquainted with? Is there a feature on facebook where you can hide who your friends are? Is it appropriate to ask someone you just met to friend you? What other cultural and social knowledge am I missing in this area?