Reasons to be nervous when meeting FB buddies for the first time

This post is inspired by my night out with a friend whom I haven’t met for a long time, her adorable daughter and three other new Facebook (FB) friends tonight. I must confess that I was a tad nervous meeting this new group of people for the first time. We have debated and shared quite a lot of opinions on FB on various issues and I have to say that they are definitely interesting and intellectually stimulating lot.

Anyway, here are some reasons to be nervous when meeting Facebook buddies for the first time. Feel free to add on to the list.

1) You can’t pretend to be smart since you can’t google every single unfamiliar terms being discussed.

2) You actually have to pay attention to the conversations. You can’t scroll back to read who said what and what was being said.

3) You can’t turn up being naked or dressed in your PJs.

4) You can’t choose which poses make you look  good and use photoshop to help hide any undesirable flaws on your person.

5) When you try to say something witty or funny, you have to be very convincing. There’s no time for you to think, write and edit. Don’t be surprised if you receive weird looks instead of blanks when you fail to execute your lines well.

6) You cannot have different conversations with different individuals simultaneously (this includes gossiping behind their backs) because that would be rude.

7) You can’t actually say w-t-f, f-asterisk-hash-percentage, etc. you get the gist.

8) You actually have to show your emotions and expressions; emoticons won’t save your life if you have no personality. For instance, you do know that you can’t fake a laugh by saying l-o-l exclamation mark.

9) You can’t simply ignore someone if they say something or invite you for something because that would be rude too.

10) You can’t keep updating someone about your status or state of being every few minutes because that would be weird, not to mention a tad too self-obsessed.

11) You have to be on top of things when it comes to what you are allowed to say or not to say and to whom since there is no exclusive message groups/threads to guide you.

12) You can count on people noticing your funny voice or any other strange characteristics you might have.

13) Of course, you do know that you will have to speak at some stage.

14) Poking/bitch slapping/tickling/annoying/throwing your knickers at someone, etc. is generally considered as socially inappropriate behaviour (in this country at least). This applies to rolling-on-the-floor-and-laughing-out-loud too.

15) You can’t instantly de-friend someone if he/she is a loser.

16) Just because you’ve finally met your cyber buddies for the first time, it doesn’t mean you will remain as their 305th friend in real life.