After over a year of being in SL, some things that people still don’t know or realize surprises me. So I might as well mention them right off the bat, so I can go on with the rest of my blog without confused comments following it.

FACT: Calling cards in your inventory and your friends list are two entirely different things. Deleting calling cards will in no way impact your friends list, and vice versa. And deleting people’s calling cards does not alert them in any way to the fact that it’s not there, whereas deleting someone from your friends list may be noticed once you stop showing up (but no alarms or popups alert them).

Recently and again the other day, I went through a major culling of my friends list. I had far too many people on it that I never ever talk to, even though we may have once or even twice had a pleasant conversation or two. I felt extraordinarily guilty never sending them an IM, but not really having the time to do so either. So when I was faced with too many things on my to-do list, and a natural aversion to doing any of them, I decided to clean house, starting with my friends list.

There’s actually some people that have landed on my list that I may not have talked to a whole lot when they were added (at either my request or theirs) but that I actually talk to now. So it’s not necessarily true that if you’re destined to be friends it’ll happen right away. And then in other situations, people actually start out promising, but the friendship fizzles out before it ever really starts.

The people left on my friends list are actual friends, current contacts that I need for one reason or the other, acquaintances that may or may not be future friends, or people I don’t want to delete for one reason or another. In the other day’s sweep, I actually removed the person responsible for bringing me into SL, even though she never ever comes on anymore. I still feel kinda wretched for doing it, since we started our friendship before SL. But I figure a simple friends list in SL, especially when one is never here anymore, is not going to alter the friendship (or fond memories) of that person anyway, right?

If you’re not sure you’re meant to be friends, but you’d like to maintain some sort of contact just in case you need it, I offer a solution: calling cards. They’re meant to be offered to casual contacts - the non-friends type of people. But, you ask, how do I do that? Simple. You right click on the person, and choose “More”, then “Give Card”. That will give them a card they can look at in their inventory, a short cut to looking you up in the search function (just in case they don’t like the search as much as I do).

Mindless babble aside, if you feel like you were summarily cut from my friends list without a chance, then by all means send up a flare (and an IM).  And if you’re on my list but have no idea why, then by all means cut me.  But if we’re friends and you cut me, then I’ll cry and cry and cry.  But don’t do it until after the shoe fair cuz I’m crazy swamped busy.

Kthxbai!