The Virtual Relationship, Real World Etiquette, Text Messages and Email
16. Jun, 2008 
4 Comments
As much as I love having an online presence and getting to know people through their blogs and through twitter, unless you are family or a good close friend, there’s still so much you really don’t know about a person you are reading about online or in less than 140 characters on twitter. Emails and texting help but in the end…the real world is king when getting to know people.
If you are going to get to know someone, at some point the virtual world must shift to the real world. With the way the online world is set up, you can email people from their blogs or facebook and go directly to them if they allow that email address to be seen by the world. I think in today’s world, this is very necessary. It’s a great way to open a door to conversation and coffee, but it’s something that needs to be handled with care and at times, caution.
On that note, I’ve been having some interesting conversations with some friends in the industry lately. One of the conversations we were having was about a pet peeve of mine. I’ve had people use my name to get meetings with people I know with out my permission.
This might sound picky to you, but I have found that there is an etiquette to taking a meeting with someone through a friend or an acquaintance. It goes something like this.
A friend comes to me and says, Hey, I’d like to try and get a meeting with so and so, do you know them and do you feel comfortable introducing me to them? I will usually reply with, Sure, let me call them and ask them if I can put you two in contact and let you take it from there. Now, if I don’t think it’s a good fit, then I will say, I’m not sure that’s a good fit, but if you still want to meet them, here’s who else you can contact to see if there is something you could do. This tells that person, I don’t feel comfortable putting my reputation out there for you on this one. Not because of you so much as because I don’t believe it’s a good fit for what you are wanting. This also tells the person that just because you know me, it doesn’t give you the permission to drop my name to get a meeting if you decide to move ahead anyway.
When people drop my name to get a meeting with someone, I usually get a call and I will hear this. Hey, I just had a meeting with someone that knows you and I wasn’t very impressed them, but I took the meeting because you two were friends and they used your name to get the meeting. This is where I go...WOW!!!! They did what? Sorry…I never would have recommended it…
Where am I going with this?
I’ve had this happen to me a few times over the years and I got to thinking about our little community we are building online and felt like maybe I should bring it up as a precaution to what is virtual and what is real.
Since blogs and twitter pull us into each other’s world a little closer, there tends to be a sense that friendships are starting to bloom and people are getting to know each other well. This is true on some level, but I have found that unless you are getting to know people the old school way by either phone and face to face interaction. Your online friendship for the most part, is still just online and very virtual. There’s nothing bad about that at all, but try not to confuse it with the real world.
When getting to know people from your online world, do it based on your own merits not someone else’s. Be yourself first and then if you need help…ask. But if you ask, be willing to accept no and move on if it comes to that…and when all else fails…be yourself first and try again.
As for my thoughts lately on emails and texting, I have decided to try and do two things.
Texting. When I’m out with friends, I will refrain from texting unless it is someone I know I need to be hearing from and it’s vitally important and only then will I excuse myself from my friends to check the message. I have a friend I hang with who called me out on this as being rude when out with friends and I have to say I think they were right. I’m turning off twitter when I need to focus my attention on my friends and when I’m walking into church. Otherwise, my phone constantly buzzes with messages and I get to distracted. I want to be present and in the moment.
My friend Anne has a great post about this today. Click HERE.
For Emails, I’m not going to be answering work emails after work hours or on the weekends unless I’m out traveling for work.
I work from home and over the years have allowed my work life to make its way into my home life. That’s not always a good thing and is only appropriate during certain times for me.
You know me…I love technology so much that it easily becomes apart of who I am. It’s fun, fast, and having such power at my finger tips is awesome. But there comes a time when it’s too much and I need a break from it…
Is this what they called becoming more mature and responsible? Yikes….
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Thanks Spence for this useful wake-up call. It’s really important to set boundaries, and as Anne has done, to evaluate them periodically and then to change them if necessary. I suppose the lesson is to live intentionally and make decisions pro-actively, and not just get swept along. I have never had email on my phone, but that’s all going to change when I get my iphone – exciting times.
Spence all good points. I find myself doing the same thing with texting and twitter. My wife has called me out a few times, yeah that will put one it his place.
While the virtual world does allow us to connect with the “world”, it’s the personal (non-technical) relationships that last, have the most meaning and give back the most.
Well spoken… As my postname may communicate, I live on the other side of the globe, have for over 4 years – in a culture that has some built in boundaries for relationships – which makes building relationships more difficult, along with language issues. Communication with friends and family back in the states is limited to emails and skype calls. People are busy and my friends are not “virtual communicators”. I don’t Twitter, (it is not available where I live,) and I still rely on email and text messaging.
In the last year of living alone, I have discovered various blogs – yours being one I have found along the way – as my viewing has increased, I have noticed that I am more aware of what is happening in the lives of the bloggers that I check in on than the people I do life with, work with, and definitely more than people in my friends and family in the States. While being connected to these people has allowed some interesting reading, a sense of community and connection – I am acutely aware that it is not sustaining nor life-giving. I don’t even have the temptations of the expanding electronic world – yet the ones I have seem to have becomes a bit dependent and unhealthy. I crave face to face meaningful connection and have found myself concerned about where I am finding my source of connection. As I often head to a blog before His lap or a phone call to someone I actually “know”, as I have done this morning. Living the life we were created for -break bread together, etc seems more and more difficult. It is a conscious effort to pursue the tangible life. Learning…
Speaking of… I just met Philip Simpson here in Norway.
I’d love to see you sometime when I get home.