What I've learned about LJ in 2 months

[billeyler]

- Random LJ searches turns up:

a) an enormous number of bored sounding teenagers saying nothing, or a lot of people of indeterminate age that have some mental illness or are suicidal. I understand from the ultra-1000s of users database analysis that the average age here is 16.5. That would make ME the average age of a grandfather.
b) a surprising number of entries are in Russian which are a hoot to translate in an online translator. HUGELY difficult to get the sense of what they're saying, but the original cyrillic looks pretty.
c) it's a definite cult thing to be a square dancer, gay or not. I haven't stumbled on a straight square dancer yet, but probably because I haven't looked! The gay square dancers I see are all people I know as acquaintances (with the exception of excessor who I saw at convention and looks yummy, but haven't met.) For most of the folks, we've never really made a commitment to know each other well in person.
d) a lot of people strive to get LJ get-togethers live and in person and often. Reminds me of the days of BBSing in the late 80s and early 90s before the internet, when we REALLY longed to socialize with all the theoretically like-minded people we could find online but not in our everyday circle. BUT the caveat of item a) makes me a tad leery of that anymore.

- After about four days of being on LJ, the 'friends' list gets pretty much locked in after the initial rush. I've looked at the friends list of a lot of folks I know personally and there's never anyone new on their lists either.

- It's much easier to use than the AOL version, which I used almost exclusively for updates on my gardening and the renovations. The thought of leaving personal comments for the whole world to read was something my mind didn't want to wrap around.

- The 'friends' concepts leaves room for miscontrued feelings and emotions. What's that all about? I see a lot of really interesting people on LJ that I'd like to keep up with, but their comments in their profile "I'd really like to friend you back if you friended me, but I have way too many friends already to read about you, too" leaves me a little perplexed. I have to keep in mind what dr_scott suggested and not use the word FRIEND in its traditional sense, but just consider it 'linkage for lurking' :-)