Gap

A few years ago, my dad got an AIM screen name. I'm not proud to admit it, but I did block him from time to time. It wasn't because of the overall weirdness of him veritably invading my social sphere, or that he was checking up on me all the time, or that I had to keep my profile clear of profanities... It was just his lack of internet etiquette, his AIM-sense, if you will. Though it was pretty funny when he was proud to have learned "brb" and "gtg."

We all know about the unspoken rule that you don't keep IMing someone when there's no response, idle or not. Depending on the circumstances and level of closeness it varies, but if a friend IMed you 20-30 times while you were idle, they'd just be the equivalent of Needy McNeederson (Minh-Chau... jk).

I would leave my AIM on for hours, idle the whole time, and end up with 20-30 messages from him. Every few minutes, it would just be "Pei, are you there?" "Pei, why aren't you answering me?" "This is Dad, don't ignore me." until he got bored and presumably went to go fall asleep while watching golf. Then he would call me later and ask why I didn't like talking to him. I started getting out of the habit of leaving my AIM on, and I got a call asking if I blocked him.

I'm glad he hasn't ventured into Facebook yet, but my co-workers/bosses have and I don't quite know how to deal with that. It's a lesser degree of weirdness to deal with than my Dad, but it's still a tricky boundary to navigate, the whole personal-professional distinction. On one hand, becoming Facebook friends is definitely an avenue to becoming better friends and that's something you want with a boss. It says "Hey, I'm taking more than the required minimum interest in you." On the other hand, there's a good amount of stuff that can be viewed as inappropriate (wall posts, bumper stickers [that's all you, Sandra], I'm drunk in probably half the pictures I'm tagged in, etc.).

I see 2 causes at the root of this.
1. To fulfill some need to keep our personal and professional lives separate. You don't choose your co-workers and you have nothing in common except for the fact that you work at the same place. Some friendships only work out of workplace convenience, and they might not work if you weren't confined to the same area for hours together a week... Kind of like how everyone is in love on The Real World but breaks up when the show ends.
2. A fear that people are shallow enough to judge on the basis of a profile on a website, even if they already know you. Which they are.