The Great and Powerful Facebook Part 7In the previous installments of the Great and Powerful Facebook, we examined everything from the role of the relationship status in Facebook, to the importance of denoting potential failure in your PM’ed real-world date. In Part 7, we’ll continue to look at moving from a digital romance to a real one and the role that communicating potential success plays. Still More Tone to Set So you’ve done a good job of putting your date at ease by curbing the potential damage that failure may cause – now it’s time to get the excitement of success up and running. Remember that the point of a date is to have a good time. It is not to inaugurate a major relationship nor is it to make you feel better about yourself – those can both be byproducts, but they cannot be the goal. After all, longterm relationships come from sustained and active work from two parties (at least, healthy longterm relationships do) while feeling better about yourself is something you do on your own (at least, healthy self-improvement is something you do alone). A date is a fun time out. No more, no less. The danger here is in over-inflating the value of a date. Particularly on Facebook where so many intermediary steps have to be taken on the way to real-world contact, you really have to make sure that a date is only a date. Specifically when it comes to PMs, here are two examples concerning the issue of success in Facebook communiqués. GOOD: BAD: Note that in the good one, there is an immediate lessening of pressure through the phrase “at the very least.” But then the statement, “we’ll have fun!” gets things moving towards open-ended joy. This is important – you always want to leave the potential for things to grow into something more in your PMs. Not only is this important in the way of laying the groundwork for a good time around the activity you’ve planned (in this case, the show,) it includes the potential for further fun. So rather than saying “We’re going to have fun at the show” which is a close-ended statement, this PM notes that the show is the center of the evening but that fun will be had regardless of whether it’s at the show, at dinner or in the parking lot. The bad one, on the other hand, packs everything into two worthless words (‘everything’ and ‘perfect’) without specifically addressing the recipient of the PM. This is another difference between the two messages, the good one specifically addresses the recipient while the bad one does not. Which leads us to the final installment of The Great and Powerful Facebook: intimacy online. |
|
Write a Review