Running Into “Online” Friends In Person

I love the fact that my site is growing in popularity. I’m not doing Perez Hilton numbers, but it’s been a nice and steady increase in the amount of people who come here to laugh, or to show love. It’s been great so far, and I hope to entertain even more people before it’s all said and done.

The only real side-effect of internet popularity comes in the form of making “friends” on social networking sites. I have a large number of friends, family, colleagues and associates whom I actually met offline, and some that I met through networking on different sites. The other side of that coin is that I get friend requests/follows/adds daily from people whom I’ve never seen or heard of before. A lot of times, they tell me that they read the site, so I accept them. Others, they don’t say anything, so I have to look at their respective profiles and make judgment calls. It usually works out, but sometimes a club promoter, pyramid scheme salesman or random crazy person will pull a fast one, and slip through the cracks.

I don’t know if anyone else can relate to this, but it’s almost ALWAYS awkward whenever I randomly see one of my Facebook “friends” whom I’ve never met offline someplace in the real world.

I guess this is why people are so selective about whom they allow access to their profile. These types of encounters rarely go over smoothly. They require deft social maneuvering, as opposed to easygoing conversation. Suppose it’s someone else that just looks like the Facebook friend? Should I let this person make the first move, since he/she added me? What is the proper protocol for these situations?

Last night, I was out for awhile with my sister, and we both saw some dude who added us on Facebook. Through talking to each other, we both discovered that neither one of us knew this guy in person, and he was most likely a small-time party promoter who adds random people to build up his distribution list. On top of all that, I always caught a weird vibe from that guy’s profile, mainly because he kind of looks like a black version of Corky from “Life Goes On” trying too hard to look cool. No offense to any people with down syndrome who might like to pop bottles in the club, but that visual is a little disturbing to me.

I actually said “What’s up” to the guy in passing, and he responded in kind. I could tell by the look on his face that he didn’t really know who I was, which confirmed the theory my sister and I came up with moments earlier. I’m not going to delete the guy, because one more voice potentially spreading the ListenToLeon word someday can’t hurt. I just hope he doesn’t choose this particular entry to start reading my site!

I was going to sit on this entry for awhile and let the jokes marinate, but I looked at my MySpace account this morning, and some dude who looks like a vertical corpse sent me a friend request. You know the Apocalypse is near, when the walking dead begins to set up social networking accounts and attempt to befriend you.

Maybe having a zombie friend might be cool. I could have him bite about 4 of my enemies, teach them some choreography, then start an undead boy band. Call ‘em “Day 666.” Who knows? You might be looking at the next Diddy here!

Oh yeah, make sure to join I Listen To Leon if you haven’t already!