Facebook Etiquette

Around three years ago, I was contacted on facebook by an old high school acquaintance, who I remembered from my grade 10 Latin and art classes.  We were by no means "friends" back in high school, but we were friendly, which I suppose was enough for me to accept his facebook friend request.  I thought nothing of it.  I simply clicked "accept" as I had done previously with literally hundreds of people who I barely knew (and a few who I didn't know at all), and left it at that.  We didn't even exchange the cursory "nice-to-see-you-online-after-all-these-years" message the way people used to do back in the early days of facebook, when people actually went to the trouble of writing a mini-blurb on how they know each of their facebook friends.  This was after that era had subsided.

But then a couple months later, out of the blue, my erstwhile colleague from grade 10 Latin messaged me, ostensibly to catch up and see how I was doing.  I've since lost the email thread (not sure if I deleted it or if it got dumped during one of fb's many format changes), but I remember the initial email was just a line or two asking "How's life? What have you been up to?"  I kept my response brief, telling him that I'd been doing well and was still in school.  I may or may not have specified grad school, but I just remember feeling ambivalent about rehashing my life story for someone whom I'd known only loosely a decade prior.  Upon receiving my half-hearted response, he immediately shot back with a multi-paragraph salvo in which he detailed 4 or 5 of his most recent accomplishments.

I remember it going something like this...

"How am I doing? Well I'm actually really glad you asked that... " Actually he didn't write this first part.  That's just what I picture running through his mind as he prepared to unload his C.V. on me. The actual message, or at least the "accomplishments" section went like this...

"As of last year I'm an ordained priest in the Orthodox church.  I lead a small but very loyal and growing congregation.  Also, last summer got married in huge and lavish ceremony that brought out the who's who of the community.  In addition to that I own and operate several very successful businesses: a dance school where I teach traditional Greek dance, and a bike shop that's been doing so well we recently had to open up a second location..."

Needless to say, I was pretty annoyed at his self-promotion and our burgeoning facebook friendship never got off the ground.

I managed to go the following three years without a repeat of that type of encounter.  But then just two weeks ago, the exact same thing happened, this time with a former friend from elementary school.  The sequence of events followed the exact same pattern:

1) Former friend/acquaintance sends brief message asking how I've been, just to get it out of the way and entice me to ask the same question in return.

2) I respond with a perfunctory update, saying I'm working on school, still living in the city.

3) They tell me how amazing their life is, and what wonderful accomplishments they've amassed since we last saw each other.

This most recent time I had to hear about how the friend in question was running a successful "DJ and entertainment company", and I was assured that things were going "really well!" (he actually included the exclamation mark.)  Although this most recent incident wasn't as egregious as the first, it still rubbed me the wrong way.  I think it's great that both these guys were doing things that they enjoyed and were successful at it (or so they claim).  But I took minor umbrage at the assumption or implication that these accomplishments are so earth-shattering that they warrant being foisted upon virtual strangers.

I guess different people have different pet peeves when it comes to the online conduct of their online social network.  I know a lot of my friends (real friends, not facebook friends) get annoyed by people who over-update.  You know, the ones who post their status every hour, informing one and all in real time about everything from their dissatisfaction with their latest haircut, to their tribulations in deciding whether to go with the Big Mac or the McChicken.  I actually don't mind these people.  Maybe I'm a bit of a voyeur.  But I'm truly annoyed by the passive-aggressive bragger.  I'm totally cool with my friends who post a triumphant headline informing people, for example, that they've just complete med school.  That's totally appropriate.  But sending me a direct message just to inform me about your wildly successful business ventures?  I could do without that.