Who Do You Prefer to Make Friends With? A Poll!

[queerbychoice]

Because I'm curious, and I've browsed you people's friends lists often enough to have seen different befriending trends among different people.

(Note: the first demographic factor below is "age"; it got squashed into the preliminary introduction because LiveJournal's poll maker is stupid that way.)

[Poll #39555]

Comments

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

you can retake it. just click on the little "fill out poll" thingy here and change your answers.

[richardevanslee.livejournal.com]

The first person I ever added to my friends list was cd332. He was a friend from Yahoo who I badgered into starting a LJ account.

Since then I've only added transgendered persons. But not all of the transgendered persons that I read or read my journal. They are all people who I gave a LJ code to and who I want to help, however distantly, even if they themselves or their journals aren't really compelling.

Richard

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

I gave a code to a suicidal drug-addicted 8th grader a few days ago, who was someone I would definitely not want on my friends list (thus, I did not add her) but who wrote REALLY good fiction which was available on her website, and I decided that merited a code. I'm still not sure whether I regret that decision or not, because I find most of the stuff she's putting in her new journal a bit, erm . . . disturbing.

Oh well.

[djm4]

What do you mean by 'straightedge'? It's not a term I'm familiar with.

I add people to my friends list for three main reasons, only one of which was in your poll - that I find their journal entries interesting. The second reason is that I know them in real life, and the third is that I want them to be able to read my (infrequent) friends-only posts.

Perceived mental instability is a slight factor, in that I don't want them throwing a massive tantrum based on whether I've added/removed them from my friends list. I Just Don't Get people who obssess about their friends lists to the extent that they notice within hours if someone's added or removed them, but I suspect they have a right to breathe the same air I do. ;-)

[queerbychoice.livejournal.com]

It means "doesn't drink or take mind-altering drugs, ever." There's a straightedje community, and if you ever come across people whose LJ usernames begin and end with the letter X, that's a common way of marking oneself as "straightedge."

Technically I'm straightedge, but I don't really understand the obsession with marking "X"s all over everything, and would rather not start calling myself xqueerbychoicex just because, well, then I'd probably have to put up with a bunch of weird unfunny jokes like "Really, you made a choicex to be xqueer?"

About the incompleteness of my poll - actually there were at least ten other characteristics that I wanted to include in the poll, but unfortunately the LJ poll creator thingy stopped me at 15 questions and informed me that I wasn't allowed to ask more than 15 questions per poll. It's always imposing inconvenient limitations like that. I'm not very fond of the LJ poll system.

[deathbystereo.livejournal.com]

My answers used to be far more true than they are now. I felt bad that I'd been on some people's friends lists for weeks or months but didn't consider them interesting enough to add back. It's unlikely to be that big a deal in anyone's life (I would hope) but I felt guilty in case I was giving them a complex so I went and added them all anyway...

[curare.livejournal.com]

actually, now that i think about it,
a person's userpic has a LOT to do
with whether i add them or not.
if they have an amazing userpic
then i may add them just for that.
and if they have an ugly or unoriginal
userpic (celebrity photos, other
people's art, animated gifs, etc.)
it takes a lot for me to ignore it.

[imbue-rectitude.livejournal.com]

You should have added length of journal entries to your poll... 'cause I swear people only respond (personally) to my short journal entries.