Invitations.

Invitations


Currently I receive a large number of invitations to friendship every week. It's not quite as bad as some of my friends who seem to receive hundreds of them and essentially appear to be swamped with people wanting to get to know them. Nevertheless I have my fair share of them and to be truthful I reject the vast majority of them. Now I don't actually like doing this. I am tormented by the fact that I may have summarily dismissed the possibility of friendship with some genuinely wonderful people. I am also concerned that my rejection might appear close to arrogance and aloofness and just be downright rude. Yet the sheer volume of invitations forces me to be selective. Were I not so, my friends' list would very quickly be full to capacity and largely with people who I never talk to or have much in the way of contact with. Already the list is overburdened with contacts with whom I have very little or no contact. There are however a lot of contacts on there for whom I have a great deal of affection and in whom I am genuinely interested. Nevertheless I concede that it is more than likely that I have rejected large numbers of people that, given the chance, may well have turned out to be fascinating individuals with whom I could have struck up a genuine friendship. I think it therefore incumbent on me to explain why their invitations were rejected and what kinds of invitation genuinely attract my attention.

I do look very carefully at every invitation I receive and subject it to a considerable amount of consideration. In order to do so I take a careful appraisal of the person's profile and any contacts I may have with them. These factors are, after all, the only criteria that I have to judge whether or not the person sending me the invitation might or might not interest me. Sadly, in the great majority of the cases, such criteria are notably absent. I seem to consistently receive invitations from people who furnish virtually no information whatsoever about themselves or any content by which I can determine whether or not we might share interests in common. I realise that many people who send such invitations might not fully appreciate that the person to whom they forward them might require some substance to the invitation. Perhaps it would be useful therefore to list the kind of things I look for in order to regard an invitation sympathetically.

To begin with I am always a little baffled by those invitations that seem to come from nowhere without any previous contact whatsoever. A lot of my friends are introductions from other people. These I naturally am open to accepting. If they are friends of my friends then they automatically are of great interest to me. Perhaps I am old fashioned but I like to be introduced before accepting a relationship. Generally anybody who first sends me a message introducing themselves I am inclined to consider seriously. I just think that it is a common courtesy. I don't normally extend an invitation to anybody whose profile has interested me without the courtesy of sending them a message. It only takes a minute or two to compose a little message telling the person in question that you have come upon their profile, been impressed by it and the content, and feel that you might have common grounds for interest. It's not necessary to include private details about yourself but a few words to introduce yourself shows that you are courteous and genuinely interested in contact and not simply rattling off invitations at random. You like to feel that the person sending the invitation is seriously interested in you. You're not just a tick in somebody's collection.

By such a message I do mean a message of genuine introduction; courteous and friendly. I'm sorry but messages that say “Hi babe! I want to cum on your face!” or “U r hot! Want to cam 2 cam?” or “Want 2 fuck? Add me on Skype.” go down like a lead balloon at this end! They go straight in the trash can. I like to be wooed! These people seem to think that seduction is something to do with hydro-dynamics!

Then again I look carefully at the contents of the person's profile page. It is incredible the number of people who send you an invitation from what is essentially a blank page! How on earth would they expect anybody to think that this might be a nice friend to have. They are a nonentity as far as the other person is concerned; a blank; a gaping void! There's not a single damn thing for the other person to know them by. You might as well make friends with a blank wall! So if your profile contains absolutely zilch then, whether you are a nice person or not, it is entirely irrelevant. Your profile simply makes the statement that you are nothing and your invitation goes in the bin!

So yes, some content on your profile is essential. This doesn't mean that it has to include deeply personal and private details about you. Indeed some details come under the heading of “too much information” as far as I'm concerned. I'm sure there are people out there who are engrossed by the information that you have a 10 inch penis, are circumcised and shave your pubic hairs off. I'm just not one of them! I am unlikely in the extreme to ever meet your genital organs socially so I'm afraid they are of marginal interest to me. I do however look for people to talk with and if you have nothing to talk about then I see no future in a friendship. So I want to see in your profile what you THINK about things.

You can tell a great deal about a person from the contents of their profile. To begin with there is their avatar. Incredibly a lot of people have absolutely no avatar whatsoever. It's back to being a nonentity! An avatar should be a reflection of you... something that you feel points to a feature of you that a person can identify with. Some people of course use their own picture as an avatar. That's very brave of them but not necessary should they wish to keep their appearance private. What an avatar should NOT be is a picture of a person that the one using it falsely purports to be them self. Now of course it's difficult to know that but I've had invitations from people with a picture on their profile that they claim to be them and the last time I saw a picture of that person they were starring in “The Hot Girls of Stockholm!” My own avatar is a recognisable image from a mainstream movie whose main character I personally identify with. That character is Japanese. I am not Japanese!

Avatars can be nearly anything. I tend to be sympathetic towards people whose avatars are beautiful images or funny. This tells me straight away that the person using them has an appreciation for beauty or a sense of humour; two characteristics that I find essential in anybody I might wish to befriend. If you can make me laugh or demonstrate an aesthetic sensibility then you are very likely to be accepted as my friend.

What I don't like to see is yet another tiresome picture of a person's penis! This can get a bit extreme sometimes. I've seen all too many profile where the only information conveyed is uncalled for graphic images of male sexual organs. Some profile even go further than a picture of the owners organ in the avatar and there are numerous other pictures of it on the wall or accompanying galleries. “This is my penis from above.” “This is my penis from one side” “This is my penis from slightly below in strong sunlight” “This is my penis on the beach front at Copacabana”! Ok I just made that last one up although that is the one that might get me interested. I mean if somebody is loopy enough to photograph their penis at famous locations around the world they've got to be worth knowing!

Otherwise I really can't see why a person feels it necessary to furnish us with endless pictures of their penis. If I was that interested I'd read illustrated medical journals. Now don't get me wrong. I'm sure you have a very nice penis and doubtless you are very proud of it but remember something.... this is a porn site! There are literally thousands, no tens of thousands, of penises on display here. Why on earth would you think that yours is so special as to warrant particular attention? It's not quite the case that if you've seen one you've seen 'em all but it doesn't exactly jump off the page does it? I am not going to fall down in a swoon at the privilege of seeing your penis and if a penis is all you have to offer in a friendship then it doesn't auger well for scintillating conversation!

It comes back to that point of an avatar being something that is representative of you. If your avatar is a penis think what it is saying about you. It is saying in simple, no nonsense terms, “I am a prick!” This is not the foundation of a meaningful relationship!

I look for content on a person's page as well. Now I have added a formidable amount of content to my own page during the time I have been a contributor here; thousands of pictures hundreds of thousands of words of my own writing. Naturally I don't expect other people to match my frenetic input. I do however want to see that the person is at least contributing something. Even if it is only the occasional blog or little picture gallery. That tells me that the person is at least creative and trying to share their own tastes with other people. Zero content is not a starting point for friendship.

If even if it is just a collection of favourites it at least gives me some guidelines to a person's personal tastes. There at least is something there to discuss with them. I'll be honest too... if my own contributions turn up among a person's favourites I'm likely to look favourably on them as well!

The other item I look for is evidence of a person's network and the way in which they interact with other users. I look perhaps for interesting discussions on their walls or a friends list populated by interesting people. If on the other hand I see a profile of a person with no content, no discussions on their wall and they've made just two comments in the past year it does not encourage me to believe that I am liable to enjoy lively conversations with that person.

I had one invite from a person the other day who'd been here for around a year, had no content on their page, had made just three comments in their time, obviously communicated with nobody and yet had accumulated over 2,000 “friends”! Into the bin it goes! Even if their own contributions are non existent I would at least expect a person to engage with those people who do contribute by rating their contributions, favouring them and making the odd comment about them. If a person simply can't be bothered to interact to that degree why on earth would they think that anybody would be interested in befriending them?

In short I am interested in meeting interesting people. I would sincerely suggest to anybody thinking of forwarding an invitation to look at their own page. Ask yourself a simple question. “Would I be interested in getting to know the person represented by my own profile.” If the answer is no then don't bother to send the invite as it'll only irritate the person that has to bin it. Instead go away and think about how to spice up your profile and to turn it into a page that a person would want to visit. Let people know whether or not you are somebody with something to say and contribute. Then maybe we can be friends!

Michaela xxxxx