f r e s h s t a r t

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

An etiquette problem unique to our age

While walking around Andersonville today I ran into an acquaintance whose website I read long before ever meeting him in person. I had my dog with me. The guy had never met Henry in person before, but had seen plenty of photos of him on flickr, and said so.

This reminded me of a problem that had intrigued me in the past. With so many people writing about the details of their lives on their websites, how do you handle that if you happen to meet someone you read about? If it's someone you knew in the real world before you started reading about them, I think it's a little different. I sometimes find out what my roommate is thinking about by reading her blog, but it's almost like hearing about it from a friend. I can bring it up without it being weird. There are plenty of people out there who I read frequently but who I will likely never meet or who are already internet celebrities of sorts. If I ran into Paul Ford in an elevator, I'd likely say something stupid but not worry about it.

But what about those friends of friends of friends whose sites you randomly find but keep coming back to? If you happen to meet one of those people at a party, how do you act? Do you say, oh, nice to meet you, so sorry about your hamster dying last week. Do you pretend that you don't know about the hamster, even though they wrote about it, you read about it, and they filled their flickr photostream with hamster pics?

Another random but related issue is seeing people around town who you recognize from flickr. I post to several Chicago-centric flickr groups, have quite a few Chicago flickr contacts who I don't know but whose photos I enjoy. When I was at Trader Joe's the other day, there was a guy who I kept passing in the aisles who looked familiar. I know I had never met him before, but I think we post to some of the same groups. In those situations, what do you say? Do you say, hey are you ?

While I would be tempted to mention the hamster, or to ask the random person in the grocery store if they are the photographer I admire, what I actually do is nothing. If the tables were turned I would prefer the illusion of privacy, so that's what I give to them.

19:48 3 comments

Comments:

You say, "Hi Eliina, I'm Deanna - the friend of Lindsay's that stalks your blog. I liked the picture of you, covered in chocolate sauce while wearing a bear suit in the hotel pool. All those naked girls around you. Wow. That was hot - "

"Wait. What? That wasn't your site? Oh. Oh. Oh geeze this is embaressing."

# posted by

Anonymous : 7:23 AM

Perfect answer!

# posted by

Eliina : 3:03 PM

I had that happen at the gym recently. I had looked up Tulsa in groups and found a bunch of people. I looked them up and among them found a college girl who posted a lot of goofy pics and some pretty sexy ones, underwear, squeezing herself into some semblance of cleavage, etc. Nothing porno, just goofy and a bit racy.
That was so long ago I forgot totally about her. Then I saw her the other day at the gym with a friend of hers! I am 51 and would be considered the proverbial dirty old man if I said anything to her, and what would I say anyway..."HI, I think you have fine cleavage, do NOT get a boob job!'?
So far I have smiled at her and said 'no, you first' at the water fountain. I know she has seen my stream because she faved something, but I still don't know what to say, mostly because it is at the gym, very social, lots of her friends around.
Anyway...there ya go!

# posted by

The Napkin Dad : 4:14 PM