Hello Hive! In this week's Ladies Of Hive Community Contest #61, we have two interesting questions posed by @joanstewart and I will be answering the second one which is:
Name three ways you build your online friendships! What do you specifically look for? Similarities in personality, culture, gender, guidance, learning, growth in communications, or something more?
Our world has become technologically advanced such that a certain percentage of the populace, especially the youths, spend more time online than they do offline.
The internet is another world or realm if you like and it's normal to connect with people and build relationships just like we do in our offline world. Humans and living beings survive generally because of community which is borne from thriving relationships.
Caution
In building online friendships, I am always very cautious. Many years back when I registered my online presence, I had heard stories of people being scammed and I had to be careful of those I interact with.
There was a time when horrifying stories were going around of some ladies who were involved in online dating. I have nothing against this but it just sounds so unreasonable to 'claim' to date someone you had never seen nor met. It turned out those ladies met with the men for the first time in the real world and the ladies were never seen again while some barely escaped after they had been repeatedly assaulted. It's a nightmare.
These stories intensified my fear and caution of who to befriend online. I don't have any social media presence except on Twitter, Hive and Blurt. Whenever I receive subtle or overt interests that lean towards dating, I shut them down.
Attraction To Likeminds
Just like in the offline world, we are attracted to people of like minds and it is on this basis that I make friends online. When I make friends (offline or online), culture or gender or race have nothing to do with it. I am more of a sapiophile, easily attracted to brilliant minds.
So far, my online friends are mostly on Hive and I start our friendship usually by engaging with them on their quality posts that hold my interest. I see lovely posts that display such intellectual brilliance and emotional intelligence and I become entranced. I comment and express my views on such subjects and in time, we become friends.
Show Interest
Friendships can only exist if an interest shown by one person is reciprocated by the other person. Some users I interact with respond and reciprocate the interest immediately which makes the connection beautiful. Also, when people reach out to me through my contents, I take time to go through theirs and couple with their expression and genuinity, I respond too.
Some users do not respond nor reciprocate for reasons known to them when I show interest to be friends so I move on. That's life. Some users reciprocate later on maybe after I have wooed them, hehe, and they have done their findings and are comfortable interacting with me. And this is okay. Not everyone can be a friend, just like in the offline world.
Engagement And Time
Engagement is essential when it comes to building online friendships especially on Hive and investing time in such friendships to make them grow. This is what I try to do constantly.
I am thankful for all my online friends. I hope to make more online friends and commit my time and interest to build such friendships. I mean, it's the wheel of friendship and community that keeps our world rolling.
Thank you for visiting my blog. I invite @teknon and @marito74 to jump on this wagon so we can ride together.