Everyone has online friends. Or almost everyone. These days the craze is over at Google+. You or at least one of your online “friends” is searching for a Google+ invite this very moment. Or they are already on Google+ adding others right now. Regardless, the craze is to find a good new social network and to start adding people. It seems the more people you have on your “friends” list online, the more popular or important you seem online, even if you never, ever interact with your online “friends” from your “friends” list.
This trend started from MySpace and Xanga probably, or even before, carried onto Twitter and Facebook, and now it lives in Google+ also. It will keep on going, since people want more “friends” online. As long as having “friends” makes you more popular than having no audience online, you will want more “friends.”
What I’ve been wondering is how the word “friend” has lost its real meaning. Almost 99.99% of everyone on your Facebook profile is not actually your real friend. They just say “friend” to imply friendship, without actually having any friendship. It’s easy to type “lol” or “awww! I’m sorry!” online just to portray an emotion that actually isn’t there. People have clung on to such “friendship” emotions online, citing them as “friends.”
In reality, most of the “online friends” are nothing more than pixels on your monitor. They are nothing like the “real offline friends”, that the online world rarely wants you to think about unless it involves the online “seasonal” friends too.
The real question for me then becomes: how many real offline friends do you have?
Classification of Real Offline Friends
There are so many classifications people use to classify someone as “friend”, it’s either literally impossible to list them all, or very hard to list them in one single sentence. “Being there for you” does not classify as a friend, as your maid or chauffeur could be there for you too. “Being there for you for free” won’t work either, since even friends hang out with you because they get something in return: “good friendship” or “good experience.” We can cover that topic another day.
In the meantime, here are some ground rules to help you decide how many real friends, or real offline friends, you really have:
- You must know them offline, obviously.
- You must hang out with them at least once a month on an almost regular basis.
- Your co-workers are not your friends unless you do all the things with them that you also do with your non-co-worker friends or family.
- You must have non-co-worker friends. Yep, this automatically kicks out so many of the self-proclaimed “online geeks.” If all your friends are co-workers, you really don’t have real friends. That’s not bad though, even if society thinks not having friends sucks.
- No seasonal friends. You cannot have seasonal friends. Someone you hang out with for a while and then move on to find someone else doesn’t count. So any existing or new people who are just seasonal don’t count.
How many real offline friends do you really have?
Based on the above, or your own imagination, how many real offline friends do you really have? What kind of friends do you consider to be real offline friends?
Share your answers, thoughts or any questions in the comments below. Thanks!
Haha this is such a great article and very true on many levels!
This post is definitely an eye opener. This should be shared to people especially those ones who are always busy chatting and posting message on Facebook.
ok ill try it and i m sure that i m having many friends let see
My answer is: As many as I have in the real world, i don’t make friends online only for the sake of having a big contact list. Actually my friends are also my online friends. This is also a safety measurement, this way i know that’s ok to accept things from them.
Real friends are hard to find these days. And sometimes we cannot notice them until they’re already gone. We just have to be thankful for everyday they are there to accompany us, make us learn new things as we continue living on our journey of life.
@Zara
Real friends are hard to find but true friends are the rarest.
The at least once a week or at most once a month is a little confusing. I do have a few friends whom I see as regularly as possible, but sometimes possible is once or twice a month.
Ooops, good catch! It should be “at least once a month” in general meaning [wanted to say "or even at least once a month"
]. Changed, thanks!
Wow. Great article. this post is definitely an eye opener. This should be shared to people especially those ones who are always busy chatting and posting message on Facebook and Twitter. Once again, thanks for the article.
I think calling it “friends” was the most stupid think Facebook ever did – I think, that smart people realize that facebook friend does not mean “friend” in reality. In my language (english is my second language) we use two terms: one for close friends, and one for people we know (but don’t consider them to be friends)… I think facebook friends are actually the latter.
Now I’m wondering what language you speak! Great article by the way.
Interesting post
I think that I have 5 offline friends (considering this classification). Three of them also online friends. I must say that Facebook has changed the meaning of word “friend”. Sad…
i have 900 friends on my facebook and everyday i only have 20 to 50 online.
Your post is much interested to all social media fanatics.
The point five is the best point i like “No seasonal friends. You cannot have seasonal friends. Someone you hang out with for a while and then move on to find someone else doesn’t count. So any existing or new people who are just seasonal don’t count.”
Friends whom I knew without using the internet? makes sense?
Anyway,thanks for this blog.
And sometimes we cannot notice them until they’re already gone.
I agree! Thank you for article!
great post this is such a great article and very true on many levels
Valid points, I guess the most offline friends I have are the people I work with
i think there is also big difference between cultural background – in europe the people using social networks think twice before adding contacts. i just have people in my contactlists i know also in the offline world
I definitely agree- Europeans seem more circumspect about adding so called ‘friends’ to their network.
You are right, what exactly is a friend, and when defined more strictly, most people have fewer. That’s why it is so important to always be a good friend and keep good friends.
hai guys
i hop my love my friends and my friends distance is very long so every day i am not meet but now every time i meet because this offline is very use full for me
This is really an eye opener for those who think that having online friends is the same with having a real friendship. Anyway most of the affected parties here are those children that don’t even know what’s the real purpose of using social networking websites.
Vins
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People have more friends online compared to offline, primary reason being social networking. Interesting!
Using those criteria, I have 1 real friend offline. That’s it!
Now I’m sad!
I guess our world is really social and online!
great article thanks sharing.
I have enough friends, I am a firm believer of quality over quantity. It is not how many friends you have, it is how many friends you have left when you are in trouble. You never know who your real friends are until you are at your worst and they still accept you for who you are.
I have a few friends offline and they’r not necessarily older people. But just becauswe they’re old doesnt mean they are internet naive. My parents are pushing 70 and both have Facebook accounts. I just know some people who I have not friended online as of yet.
There are people on my facebook that I knew from highschool even gradeschool that I havent talked to in 30 years. It’s weird. The majority of OFFline friends are what I would consider acquaintances from work.
For me I don’t need many friends like what I have on my Facebook and Google+ friend list. As long as I can consider 5-10 as my real friends I am okay with that. This article is so interesting, thanks for sharing.
I have both loads of offline and online friends. Having both is great.
I really wonder how google+ works, one of my friend asks me to add her and then I did but what then? I didnt have the time yet to google how google plus works since my work keeps me occupied and I only use google docs quite often. Anyone bother to give me a hint of how google plus works?
Engines are using the nofollow HTML attribute, introduced in 2005, to keep their search results more relevant. Posting a link resource on a quality page that has nothing to do with the page’s theme is SPAM. This type of commenting must be reduced to keep engine users satisfied with the result pages.
Your online friends could always become your real life friends. Meeting people and becoming friends happens all the time, helps to get away from the PC now and again
really you write here very real scenario. Every students are crazy about Facebook but no one crazy about the things which is very useful in Facebook. The main use of this is not known to no one. Here you gives best information on it…..
I have over 250 Facebook ‘friends’ and interact with less than 100 on a regular basis. But I suppose the whole point of the website is to be more social!
I have more than 250 offline friend in my facebook account today.
Good insight! It is interesting and quite informative as well!
I don’t care if someone has 10million facebook friends. To me, a friend is someone you know you can count on when the chips are down. Personally, I only have around or 9 real friends, but that’s more than enough.
Mary, thanks for the reply.
Question: are those real friends of yours on Facebook or some other social network by any chance where you interact with them fully online?
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Great article thanks sharing.