Facebook Negligence

It may just be me, but I hate when a girl gives you her number and you call like, a week later, and she answers the phone and speaks to you tentatively like she has no idea who you are. Though a girl once explained to me that when given a number in that situation you can't call right away, or else you look clingy and obsessive, and more than five days later is awkward because it demonstrates that you have been thinking about her well beyond when you were expected to call. I told her it was the stupidest thing I had ever heard. So then I thought about it with guy logic: if you don't want someone to call, don't give them your number. Not a brain killer.

But that was well before the dazzling entertainment which is now known as facebook. The site is your typical, friendster, myspace, look at all my friends but I'm really not that popular anyway, service (which I, typically, am a member of). However, facebook differs from those equally lame sites in one major way; contact information. It is the only site that actively encourages filling out your email, instant messaging screen name, and phone number. Girls too, and I don't just mean hideous ones, have their numbers listed.

I began making phone calls and wasn't surprised to find that the response from most people I called was of the "um, who is this, sorry I don't know you, yeah but I don't know you in real life, take it easy" variety but to my amazement I did find a couple people who actively engaged me in conversation. The first of which was Ms. Katharine Marris, currently attending Parsons. She told me, in reference to an apartment I claimed to have gotten us, "Um, I think we should pose as brother and sister, I mean, the landlord may not like gays," and I agreed, which she followed with "Um, I'll call you right back." Next on the list was Lily Nussbaum, singer at the Jazz School, who I came to with a love life dilemma. "I don't understand why you called me though," and I explained seeing her in a relationship made me figure she was good at these things, "well," she said, "I think you should call this girl back, tell her you didn't mean what you said and are an ass and see where it goes from there." Good advice from a great "friend."

Another option in facebook is to give a direct link to your better half's page where you can view their profile and easily contact them, an option only available on this service. Keeley Stalnaker, Lang student with hopes of becoming a lawyer, used facebook to sabotage a relationship. "I knew who his girlfriend was, and knew that he was cheating so I sent his girlfriend an email to tell her," she said whimsically, without even knowing the girlfriend. "I liked the opportunity to provide a civil service."

It seems to me that lots of these problems could be averted if the opportunities to create them weren't present in the first place. Negligence and the desire to fill out things will oft times get the better of people, consequences be damned. Lily said, after I explained it was all just for an article, "it's funny, because the second I got off the phone I turned to my roommate and said well that's what I get for putting my number online. How about that."