Dos & Don’ts of connecting with new, don't-know-personally Facebook friends

#4 of How to make Real Friends out of your new Facebook Friends 

Making real friends out of your friend-request-added-friends demand social techniques that are frighteningly distinct from playing the numbers game. It is about building relations. 

Do you wish to make friends and not merely add them as profile decorations? 

Do you know that being an online star with 10 million friends is entirely different from making 3 good friends out of total strangers? 

What do girls need to understand before writing to guys they do not know outside Facebook? 

What do men need to keep in mind before connecting with girls they met on the website? 

What are the things men should know before trying to befriend (not seduce!) women? 

What are the Facebook first-contact behaviors that automatically get you ‘un-friended,’ or land you the Unpopular Twink of the Year Award, or leave you languishing in obscurity in someone else’s profile? 

Water the first connection; keep watering it

When dinosaurs walked the earth, my Facebook world consisted of only about 100-150 friends. I used to write alternately, regularly, to each of them (almost) at least once in two months. I reached out to them with simple, general niceties:

• How-are-yous
• Just-dropping-in-to-say-Hi
• Read-your-status-I-hope-you-are-OKs
• Leaving thank-you-for-the-request as ice-breakers et cetera

(Since 2007, when I joined the network, I’d been making a small career out of leaving small thank you notes on the walls of every person who’d sent me an add. 
Fluke became a hard habit. I knew it had started to border on the obsessive when my friend Peter Rutsa remarked wryly, "Al says thank you to everyone, all the time!" I didn't mean to start a trend, trust me, at least not among the north east Indian community here. 

Initially, most of the people coming in were readers who had something to say about my articles or news reports in the newspapers. My sentiment was that If they took time to appreciate my works, or writing in to befriend me, then thanking them for sending me an add was the least I could do in return. 

Over the years, the number of my Facebook friends has grown. The task of saying ‘thank you’ in one sitting to 20-30 persons who sent me an add, for instance, became somewhat onerous. I stopped writing ‘thank you’ to each – about a month ago!)

Alternatively though, I make it a point to interact with them in various other ways, e.g.,

• Likes, 
• Poking (no, I wouldn't poke you unless you did first), 
• Tagging photographs, 
• Sharing links, 
• Writing in when I can, ETC. 

There is no way I'd waste opportunities to knowing people. There is no misery equivalent to being just another statistic on someone’s friend-list.  

Returning to the topic of writing to new people: 

Of course, I never write to random people just like that. What is my Kingfu Panda Technique? Observe the ones that appear decent, and / or demonstrate affability, and are not too loud.

I stay away from the Looking-For-Lover types, the Look-At-Cleavage types, the Social-Mileage-Digging type. You can call me a sophist, pretentious, morality-licking son of a fish but I tell you, I want grounded, dependable people around in my old age, you see. 

By choice, I stay 100 miles away from the aggressive, the loud and opinionated, the attention-seeking post maniacs, the upload-DP-50-times-a-day junkies, and the Like-fishers, too.

Just. Not my crowd. I love world peace.

Anyhow, I still email new people in my friend-list. Not as regularly as I used to, but occasionally just enough to keep the bond oiled.

Of course, it is a hit-and-miss. You’ll need to be cautious if you’re new to this whole write-an-email-approach. Some will respond and take the conversation forward. Some will not. Some might even question your motives.

However, just remember that you lose nothing if you are keen on knowing new people, befriending them and sharing in this big, beautiful world of ours. 

So how do you start reaching out?

Signals

Here is an opportunity: Look out for ‘signals.’ Statuses normally tell a lot of stories. People express their feelings – heartache, loneliness, need or grief, and tragedy – in their statuses.

You can start by doing small things: To those grieving, you may write in offering condolences and sympathy. To those in need, write in offering your assistance. To those celebrating, throw in your congratulations. Birthdays are normally fertile opportunities, where you can connect with them at a personal level 

Caution:

Do not over do it. Likewise, do not write too regularly, at least not initially. You don't want to be thought a drooling mutt that enjoys crowding other's spaces.

Conversely, do not also miss out on noteworthy events that you will be missing the opportunity to befriend the person. Make your presence felt only where apt.

Take the right signals 

Years ago, I wrote to a new friend offering my assistance after reading her status that a writing topic was giving her, well, "PMS.” I wrote to her offering my help. We corresponded, shared ideas, and collated inputs. She completed it. 

Then, she turned out to be someone from one of India’s biggest magazines. Today I write for that magazine as well. And the friend? At this time, she was struggling to send me plane tickets to attend her wedding! (Love you #Kanishka).

Of course, I am not saying someone you wrote to would turn out to be a millionaire who'd eventually gift you a Porche. The whole point is about building relations. Be genuinely interested in people (do not crowd) and you'll win them on to your side of life. 

That is the whole point about friendship, isn't it? You can be with them on important days as and when you can. Normally, I write private messages on their birthdays to wish them (it has better chances at being read than being found on the wall).   

The whole point of this is not to be popular or likeable–it is making friends and keeping the friends you made, remember? Just like flowers, you need to keep watering the friendship: stay in touch, write and interact if you want that friendship to blossom.

Caution:

• Do not push too hard. Take a minute a think whether or not you’ll look intrusive. Writing to offer sympathies is different from offering your help: both are governed by contexts that are different from the other. Does that person really need help? What would he think if you just wrote to say hello? So, take time to think before you rush in with all the good intentions.
  
• Stick to the good old laws of social etiquette. Which of the following introductory emails will most probably fetch you a response?
  
  Email 1 "Hi, thanks for the add! What's your real name? You are soooo hot! I am sure your phone number is hotter. Let's exchange phone numbers!"
  
  Email 2: "Hi, I hope you're doing well. Thank you for adding me / accepting my request. Please excuse me if I'm intruding. I thought maybe I should leave a note to say thank you. Have a wonderful day!"
  
  Example no.2 will win you people. The first one will land you in the Saraha Desert.
    
• Be polite, don't leave expectations ("reply back soon!" or "waiting for your call1") dangling all over the place. Stay calm.
  
• Write, and if you receive a reply, there is nothing more wonderful because you now have the opportunity of taking it forward gradually. But, go easy. Do not push, ask too many questions. Follow the person's lead, if you feel you do not know where to take the conversation.
   
• Do not write too often if you have yet to find a place in the good book of the person you wish to be friends with. People do not take kindly to new people crowding in. It will push people, who otherwise would have been great friends to you, away. They simply unfriend you or report you to the mental asylum for people who have imaginary friends.
  
• In the initial conversations, do not ask personal questions, or ask for phone numbers (unless you have indications that the person is open about sharing you personal contacts). Do not flatter unless your ambition in life was to get ‘unfriended’ at the first ‘hi.’ Follow conversations, not push them.
  
• Keep your emails decent, affable and maybe even lightly funny (easy going people are easier to be comfortable with). The whole point is to show them that you are not fishing for anything and have no other expectation except to befriend them.
  
• Never leave an expectation dangling in your emails: 'Please reply', 'write back to me,' 'I want to hear from you,' 'Check out my profile,' and such small-people-loser stuff are surefire disasters. Stick to the basics, wish them a great day, and continue on. Pressurize them with expectation and they'll give you the unfriend / block treatment.   

• If they do not write back, hey, the burden is not yours to bear. Remember, the whole point is your willingness to being a friend and to befriend. Maybe they’ll write back later; maybe they won’t ever. Do not worry–there are more than 7 billion people on earth and you’ll never run out of potential friends.

Most of my best friends today (best friends in the real world too!) are ones I met on Online (Hi5, MySpace, Facebook, emails etc). If you want to make friends, be a friend to them first. Just start slowly.

Oh, and yes, just one more advice:

If you have a partner, please stay faithful to him / her, even when you are with others in the privacy of your mailbox / chat :)

Coming in the next blog post Sample 'warning' emails for men / women to read before writing to that new male / female friend you met on Facebook