Now I respect privacy, indeed in many ways I am a very private person, so I have no problem with people setting their profiles to private - I'm sure they all have their reasons. However, lately I've been getting friend requests from people with their profiles locked. Like I said, their choice, but I like to know who I'm dealing with. I'm not talking about knowing their life history, just a little more than a name and a face.
I always appreciate the fact that out of the many millions of MySpace pages someone has chosen mine to look at and me to reach out to. I am humbled by the response my, frankly amateurish, page is getting and am truly grateful to everyone who takes the time to check me out. I won't automatically reject a friend request from a private profile, but I won't accept one either unless the person behind it gives me something more (or I already know the person behind it, of course).
I've mentioned this before in a response to
this blog but I'll say it again; when I make a friend request it's because:
* I know the person in real life
* From what I've seen in the profile, I would like to know the person in real life
* I like and/or respect that person or band's music/musicianship
* I would like to work with that person or band in a musical capacity
* Any combination of the above
I hope that the people who send me requests use similar criteria and whilst I can never know (unless I ask them, of course) if that's the case, if their profile isn't private I can at least get a flavour of who they are and what they're all about.
I don't expect I'll meet the majority of the people in my friends list, but I don't want my internet friendships to be totally meaningless otherwise what's the point? So, if you're on a private profile and, for whatever reason, you want to be my friend, please send me a message with or before the request telling me a little bit about yourself so that I can add you straightaway when I see the request.
It has its critics and nothing made by man can ever be perfect, but I really enjoy MySpace and the links it has made for me, long may it continue.
One Love, Spy!