Of Geeks and Cliques.
Feb. 5th, 2008 05:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cdaveA little while ago[1] I ran into the list of Geek Social Fallacies. The things that some geeks think, that taken to extremes, make their social lives harder.
GSF #1: Ostracizers Are Evil
While I've ever got the point where I refused to see someone, I know a few people who have, and respect their decision. So I think I'm clear on this one.
GSF #2: Friends Accept Me As I Am
Given that I openly invite ridicule, by asking friends for opinions before doing something daft like buying a pair of mad steampunk scientist goggles, I'll say I'm clear here too.
GSF #3: Friendship Before All
Definitely not guilty here. I'm not terribly good at staying in contact with people at a distance, and am never upset if someone has something more important to do than show up for a face to face.
GSF #4: Friendship Is Transitive
"Wouldn't it be great to get all my groups of friends into one place for one big happy party?!"
Definitely got a case of this one.
GSF #5: Friends Do Everything Together
"In larger groups, it can make certain social events very difficult: parties which are way too large for their spaces and restaurant expeditions that include twenty people and no reservation are far from unusual."
Got this. I tend to be aware of cliques within the circles, but ignore them. I just wander around talking to everyone, and try to chivy everyone into doing whatever the group does. Which can make things overcrowded, and can run into issues when certain people aren't talking to each other.
Now to explain how those affect me I'll have to talk about the circles I move in.
The Friend Wheel application from Facebook puts all your friends as points around the outside, and draws lines between them if they know each other. In this example most of the user's friends know each other. My wheel looks slightly different.
Starting from the top, and going anticlockwise, the Joinees, Alt.Alumni.Warwick users, the ex-Radio Warwick presenters, people from my school days, colleagues from my last job, and smattering of others including: SF fandom, webcomic artists, and friend of a friends.
I'm not so far into GSF #4 that I take liberties with my friends' friends. What happens is that I think everyone is really lovely and would get on with everyone else, so try to encourage my different groups to merge. I've been doing this since school days, when I dragged kids from my neighborhood and school to drama.
One side effect of GSF #4 is that I've been responsible for introducing a few couples to each other. I only ever see this in retrospect. I never mean to play cupid, but it is nice.
[1] GSF seen at the Nice Guy article, via Mango's offensive grocery.
Oh and as an aside, if you got this far;
How do you pronounce clique: click or cleek?
GSF #1: Ostracizers Are Evil
While I've ever got the point where I refused to see someone, I know a few people who have, and respect their decision. So I think I'm clear on this one.
GSF #2: Friends Accept Me As I Am
Given that I openly invite ridicule, by asking friends for opinions before doing something daft like buying a pair of mad steampunk scientist goggles, I'll say I'm clear here too.
GSF #3: Friendship Before All
Definitely not guilty here. I'm not terribly good at staying in contact with people at a distance, and am never upset if someone has something more important to do than show up for a face to face.
GSF #4: Friendship Is Transitive
"Wouldn't it be great to get all my groups of friends into one place for one big happy party?!"
Definitely got a case of this one.
GSF #5: Friends Do Everything Together
"In larger groups, it can make certain social events very difficult: parties which are way too large for their spaces and restaurant expeditions that include twenty people and no reservation are far from unusual."
Got this. I tend to be aware of cliques within the circles, but ignore them. I just wander around talking to everyone, and try to chivy everyone into doing whatever the group does. Which can make things overcrowded, and can run into issues when certain people aren't talking to each other.
Now to explain how those affect me I'll have to talk about the circles I move in.
The Friend Wheel application from Facebook puts all your friends as points around the outside, and draws lines between them if they know each other. In this example most of the user's friends know each other. My wheel looks slightly different.
Starting from the top, and going anticlockwise, the Joinees, Alt.Alumni.Warwick users, the ex-Radio Warwick presenters, people from my school days, colleagues from my last job, and smattering of others including: SF fandom, webcomic artists, and friend of a friends.
I'm not so far into GSF #4 that I take liberties with my friends' friends. What happens is that I think everyone is really lovely and would get on with everyone else, so try to encourage my different groups to merge. I've been doing this since school days, when I dragged kids from my neighborhood and school to drama.
One side effect of GSF #4 is that I've been responsible for introducing a few couples to each other. I only ever see this in retrospect. I never mean to play cupid, but it is nice.
[1] GSF seen at the Nice Guy article, via Mango's offensive grocery.
Oh and as an aside, if you got this far;
How do you pronounce clique: click or cleek?
