The funny thing about being 9 hours and 6 hours ahead of the people that I talk to the most is that they're usually asleep when I'm awake. And, obviously, vice versa. This often leads to me Facebook stalking people instead of talking to them and, after a fruitful stalking expedition this afternoon, I've decided that getting to know people through their Facebook profiles is interesting. (I know, "filler word alert" but gimme a minute.)
Getting to know someone through their Facebook profile only allows you to know them as much as they are willing to post about their life; thus you can guess whether they're a private or public type of person. You can see whether they post their own pictures or whether they get tagged in their friends' albums all the time; thus you can learn whether they value living their life away from the computer as well as documenting for the whole internet to see. You get to see the way a person thinks through the words the choose to post as their profiles, whether they care about "looking pretty" through scrolling through their profile pictures, and how much of their own life they're willing to share with the entirety of the world's interwebs.
I think, if someone perused my profile, they'd probably guess that I post a lot about things I've accomplished. ("A lot" being relative to how many statuses/pictures I've posted.) They'd learn a lot about my activities in Europe thank to my mom's dedicated relationship with her camera. They might be inclined to say that I like to be creative and that friends are important to me. Perhaps they might also notice how insanely curly my hair is and all of my attempts to do something to control it.
I've met some new people this quarter, surprise surprise. (Bear with me, it's relevant, I promise.) And I'm coming to realize that it doesn't take much for people to become important to me. That said, there are varying degrees of significance among all of my friends. But it is true that I will always want to get to know them better.
Coming full circle now, looking at people's Facebook profiles is a very unconventional way to get to know people but that doesn't mean that it's a "bad" way. Granted, if it's the only way you try to get to know someone, you probably aren't going to get to know them that well; but, combined with the more conventional options of going out for sushi, dancing blues, or playing pool until one am, Facebook can add a lot of layers to how you understand people.
Another thing on my mind is how a few people that I don't know extremely well are some of my favorite people. Perhaps it's because I haven't spent a lot of time with them but the little time that I have spent with them had been wonderfully memorably. Perhaps it's the feeling that we'd get along great if we were to hang out more often. Perhaps it's because there's some trait you have that I really admire. Whatever the reason, there are a few people that I really want to hang out with more. New goal for this quarter :)
