 Some of my most treasured face to face, friendships have been made, 'on line'. I am bringing up the delicate subject of friendships made on facebook and requests to make these into face to face, real life friendships. I have made many wonderful and lasting friendships following meeting people over the internet. I am trusting, but I am not very naive where security is concerned. When I meet people for the first time, I meet in public locations. My home address is private, I use mailing addresses, highways of Australia, as the only address I need to use over the internet. Good friends will always understand. If you have a few or a lot of facebook friends, many of whom you have not personally met, or really know, the majority of these people will be decent, wonderful people who may enrich your life. The problem is that today’s con artist, today’s burglar, is intelligent, is up with the latest way of obtaining addresses and then being informed of when you will not be home. Which one of your 100, facebook friends, is the professional criminal? I hope, none, but chances are.... So you spent four hours one evening telling someone ‘NO’, you are not giving them your home address for them to ‘pop in’, when they are passing, and you are feeling like you ‘may have hurt their feelings and that is why you spent so long trying to explain it nicely to them’, but sudden wake up call, this morning. ‘You did the right thing, Kathy’. How could I have been so naive to assume the over insistence to obtain my home address, was based on friendship? Friendship respects your wishes. Friendship agrees to meet you in the park, not require your home address. Friendship knows that trust is mutual and develops gradually and is non insistent or yes I’ll say the word,- pushy. Of course, we all want friendship. We value friendship. However, this week I have declined two new facebook friendship requests because we have no friends in common. Do I need strangers knowing my moment to moment, status updates? This year I have had repeated requests for my home address (in a subtle want to visit in the name of developing a personal friendship, way), despite my constantly saying I do not have people over to my house. I am now wide awake, and aware that true friends would have heard me the first time I said this and it would not have required a constant rephrasing and repeating to stop the constant requests and I now know that I did the right thing. I am so very grateful that I did not slack off my guard, because I was beginning to feel ‘mean’ and ‘feared offending a friend’. Yes I did the right thing, I protected the privacy and security of my home from strangers and I know my true friends will applaud me for being strong enough, to not let down my guard by accident. Consider Your Home Address, Internet Security. There is a lot of concern about who can access your facebook information but the best security is being selective about what information you give out, over facebook, through blogs and on the internet generally, as it is accessed by more people than just your trusted friends. I wrote more on this subject in my 'Personal Massages' blog, at http://www.cars-art.com here http://www.cards-art.com/1/post/2010/02/consider-security-of-your-home-address-when-using-the-internet.html The Secret Language of Your Body: The Essential Guide to Health and Wellness Order DVD's and Books at DISCOUNTED prices. Click on Fishpond Image link below to browse.
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