Making connections on Facebook

When I first began playing on Facebook I took the term “friends” much more in harmony with my own love of real-life friendship. A friend was someone I knew, liked, and shared intimately with, by which I mean share our life stories and our feelings in an authentic way.

I didn’t feel right making friends on Facebook with people who weren’t real-life friends. It just seemed weird. But I discovered that I quickly maxed out on people I knew in real life to be friends with and many of my real-life friends didn’t hang on Facebook nor were they that crazy about email correspondence.

I also noticed when I had under fifty certified friends that much of the material streaming through my page was rather depressing. I had friends who made a hobby out of complaining, lamenting, and worrying. They loved posting their dramas and funks.

Under those circumstances, Facebook wasn’t that much fun. Reading or hearing people moan and groan has not been a turn-on for me. It’s too easy for me to feel their burdens clouding up my morale space. I respond more to people who see the bright side of life. Don’t worry, be happy.

Eventually I discovered how to make friends of friends. Facebook became more of a networking tool. As it turned out in my case, one of the new friends I befriended this way was a married couple from Vancouver, BC who were definitely of the don’t worry, be happy persuasion. They had decided that they wanted to become millionaires via the Internet and as part of that gig they were going to share videos they made documenting their journey.

It was through these guys that I got my first exposure to the concept of using Facebook to find like-minded people among a sea of millions of strangers to befriend. I’d been a long-time online networker, but had not initially seen Facebook in that context. When you ask someone on Facebook to be your friend, Facebook asks that person to confirm that he or she knows you. As in already knows you. At first that was an obstacle for me as I had been drilled on being a good little boy and following procedures correctly, but then I learned that many people did not take this confirmation process as literally as I was taking it.

I learned through some of the social media networking buzz that entrepreneurs were using Facebook and Twitter to build massive marketing lists. And of course I ran into sales pages where so-called marketing gurus taught people how to make $14 million overnight while wearing their nighties. They did it through automation.

I wasn’t very interested in using Facebook to make money, but I was very interested in using it to reach out and network with people who may be, it could be said, members of my soul tribe. They would be people who shared some beliefs and interests in some of my favorite topics such as near-death experiences, reincarnation, natural ecstasy and transcendent sexual experiences, photography, computer art, writing, and positive living.

So I learned how to look at the profiles of friends of friends to see who might share common interests with me. I would check out the interest groups they signed up for and the blogs many of them wrote. Then I would ask them to be friends. I would send them a brief message describing what I felt we had in common and why I wanted to become a friend. Suddenly I was finding people online who were accepting the friendship of a complete stranger.

I found out, as many of you may have found out, too, that when someone accepts (or as Facebook says, confirms) your friendship, Facebook sends out suggestions for more friends. When that happens I go check out their profiles to see what interests we may have in common. Soon I realized that I did have to send personal messages. Most people seeing how many friends we had in common just said yes.

I currently have over 1,200 friends on Facebook. The number doesn’t mean much to me. The vast majority of them I don’t know personally and will probably never meet in person. They’re from North America, South America, Europe, Australia, Asia. So what’s the point?

Unlike the experiences I had when my wall was filled with lots of complaining, I am choosing to surround myself on Facebook with optimists, lovers (in the spiritual sense) , and people who are wealthy in their creativity. Now when I look at Facebook, I see more interesting things on my wall.

Each of these friends points a way through their wall posts, links, and groups they join to fascinating or inspiring content. This is the stuff that fills my brain. This is stuff that I most likely would not have encountered on my own.
They repeat the wisdom of great teachers, They post links to great YouTube video content or other video sources. They refer to fascinating websites or blog posts. And if I get intrigued by something from this serendipity, I can conduct my own Google search to get even more input.

Besides the obvious benefits of all that, it has also changed how I manage my media diet. Previous to the Internet I’d have to rely on cable TV and the print media for input. While that was great in many cases, it also meant having to put up with commercials and programming by ratings. In other words, I could only have what I found in a media that was controlled by economics.

With new media and social networking, that’s a thing of the past. Now I can go find content that I want. If I have an interest in something, I go look for content. I don’t have to wait around until great content finds me by luck.

My Facebook technique is a vehicle that the universal forces behind the law of attraction can use to make connections for me … and for you. If you’re looking to attract something into your life, having friends on Facebook, even though you don’t know most of them personally, opens a channel for the right person to emerge into your life at the right time.

That’s the adventure. You never know who you will meet. You never know who will appear to open doors for you and for whom you can open doors.

Getting to know some of these people will be my next calling. I wish to become friends in the more traditional meaning of the term with some of the fascinating people who write wonderful blogs and post great consciousness. I look forward to sharing thoughts and feelings with these people.