The Thousand Yard Stare

I ran into kind of an interesting quandry today. Nothing earth shaking, really.

Today I saw that one of my friends had become friends on Facebook with Jim Heath aka The Reverend Horton Heat. My knee-jerk Facebook reaction was, “Geez, I need to add him.”  As a fervent Google+ user now, my first inclination was to study why it was that I felt I needed to add him on Facebook.

Sure, there’s a small element of being in touch with one’s heros, etc, etc. I’ve talked to him quite a few times (being in Dallas tends to give one a lot of exposure to the Rev) But really, with his 1000+ friends, did I really think that he was going to see one of my posts one day and think, “He really is my friend”? So I thought about it a little bit more. He made all his pictures public (thankfully) so I was able to see a bunch of really early photos of his without having to friend him. Nice.

My facebook feed is flooded with all the burlesque people adding more and more people. So, watching the Rev add tons of people daily didn’t have much appeal.

So, my next thought was, “If he was on Google+, would I add him?” At this point I’m not sure. What information would I share that I think he would want to see? What information would he share with me in one of his circles.

Again, I faced this dilemma (minor as it is) when I got home. I checked my G+ and another famous dude is on there. When I look at his page, I think to myself “I wouldn’t call him a friend, and I’m sure he feels the same.”  But this same dude has turned me on to some great stuff. I’m just a fan.

So the dilemma is that I already want to use Google+ to weed out all the crap that I really don’t want to see, but to what extent do I want to shield myself from it this early on.