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Marzipan for Connie!

I'm kind of new to LJ and not so familiar with its conventions. I would always let somebody know if I wanted to friend them because it seems like the polite thing to do. But I also don't friend a ton of people. I'm wondering what the best way to asking somebody if you may friend them. What do people prefer? In a comment to a specific post? In a message to their email address if they have one listed?

I don't post much or much of anything but I would want to know why somebody friended me. Especially if it was somebody who wasn't actually a friend.

you equate reading and friending so absolutely.

But the thing is, that is how I use LJ exclusively. I read LJ through my friendslist.

I'm not saying you should see it my way; I'm saying, look, here are two radically different descriptions and experiences of the same software. How I think it works, emotionally, is different from the way you think it works. Same tool, different mental model.

And I'm trying to back away from the "should"; I'm trying instead to talk about social expectations.

my behaviour is typical for the webmaster role. True?

Absolutely. And my POV is certainly marked by never having been a Webmaster, and by having no access to referrer logs. My view of the Web is that it's shouting down a well: I have no idea who is listening.

I put 'em out, anybody can read 'em, and anybody can respond. I have no control of what happens after they go out.

This is how I feel about my LJ.

There are people here I really like, and enjoy reading whom I've never "friended" on lj, because it felt like overstepping.

This is how I feel about friending other people's LJs. There's people here I might want to friend, but I haven't because I wouldn't want to get "too close."

How do you follow blogs?

I type 'em in. But I thought we were talking about how we read LJ.

I take the friending so personally. There are a couple of people who I know IRL that never friended me. But naturally, I've never said, "Hey, friend me!" cause I figure they either haven't checked their lists or just don't care to friend me in LJ. Hell, I'm not sure I'd friend me in LJ.

Marzipan for Connie!

t still looking for the button that controls the "squash Marzie" foot.

Should I be disturbed on how quickly you found that, Empress?

Marzipan to eat! Not the dried out, either, the marzipan dough that can be mushed and molded and played with before you eat it and get that lovely almond sting on the tongue.

that is how I use LJ exclusively. I read LJ through my friendslist.

I'm not saying you should see it my way

This:

I guess I'm saying that to me, they're the same thing; people who've friended me are people who read me.

Makes it look like you're not describing your own behaviour, you're describing the behaviour of others. I'm not challenging how you use LJ. I'm challenging the assumption you seem to have made about how other people do.

Should I be disturbed on how quickly you found that, Empress?

Hee! I love Marzy.

I think of friending someone on LJ as the equivalent of bookmarking a regular blog. So I haven't necessarily told people I'm friending them, any more than I tell Slacktivist or the Smart Bitches that I've bookmarked their blogs.