I Know You, Online

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As we go through our daily lives we encounter many individuals.  Some individuals we know very well, some we slightly know, and others we don't know at all.

Within the category of individuals we slightly know is a subgroup of people that we are connected with through social media platforms.  Out of the individuals in this subgroup I would say that for at least 80% of them, more than half of your knowledge about them and interactions with them come from, and occur online via social media.  


There are people that you know about, and interact with that you rarely see in person, or perhaps have never even met.  Kind of mind-blowing, right?

This creates a social problem of sorts.

What do you do when you see these individuals in the physical world?


The best way to answer this question is to play out a scenario.  All scenarios will be different, but I find it useful to tell a story like this:

     Paul attends a North Eastern university with about 5,000 undergraduate students.  He is very attuned to the technology trends of today.  He's all over social media; he blows up news feeds like there is no tomorrow.  On a Thursday last month Paul went out to The Social Suite, a local college bar.  He spent most of the night catching up with some of his closer friends.  Later in the evening he saw his lab partner, Bill, at a table at the other side of the bar; he went over and greeted him.  At the table were five of Bill's close friends, deeply involved in a drinking game.  As Paul arrived, Bill introduced him by saying, "Hey everyone, this is Paul."  He was welcomed with smiles and a "hey" or two.  Paul stayed around for 15 or 20 minutes talking to Bill and watching the group compete against each other for what I like to call Drinking Game Fame or DGF for short.  The night continued and Paul went on his way home.
     The next day Paul decided to look Bill up on Facebook.  He friended him when they first became lab partners, but didn't really take a look at his profile.  After five to ten minutes on Bill's profile, Paul recognized a girl, Leslie, that had commented on Bill's timeline; she had been at the table at the bar last night.  Paul saw that she had jokingly posted about what artist she thought would play at the university's spring concert.  It was a singer that Paul very much disliked.  He immediately friended her, and she accepted.  Over the course of the next few days Paul had "liked" a few of her statuses, and posted a YouTube video on her timeline.  She did much of the same.  Throughout the next month Paul and Leslie saw each other's statuses and posts in their news feeds and began to learn things about each other without much effort.
     Recently Paul went to a large party at a friend's place.  There were many different people there.  One of the attendees happened to be Leslie.  At one point, Leslie and Paul made eye contact across the room.  Bam!

What to do?  What to do?

They technically had never met other than the night at the bar, but had some correspondence through social media.  Paul knew that he could easily divert his eyes the other way, and pretend to have never seen her.  Would it be weird if he went up to her and used the online interaction as a means to officially meet her?  Would she want to even talk, or was the social media interaction all that she wanted to result from their connection?

I have been in similar situations, and I have come to the conclusion that the best thing to do is acknowledge the other person and use the social media connection as a starting point for real interaction.  Bring up the topic of social media, or even mention something you saw related to the other person's social media presence.  Just because you've only interacted online doesn't mean you can't in real life.

Doing this will immediately break any social tension.  If you find someone interesting, but for the most part only know them through the internet, leverage the social media connection to form a foundation on which a relationship has the opportunity to form.

If you're interesting online, I'll take the initiative to find out if you're interesting in real life if the opportunity presents itself.

Come out from behind the screen and be social the old fashioned way.