Thursday, February 25, 2010

To Poke or Not to Poke?


Ouch. Darn that Jessie, she poked me again! This all started about 2 months ago when we rediscovered each others existence via Facebook after many, many years of not knowing directions taken and lives led since high school days. Happily, there’s been messaging up a storm, in a spirited effort of making up for lost time.

Soon after we friended, I received my first poke from Jessie. Had only been poked once before, by a former work colleague. How odd; can you imagine someone sticking their index finger into that continuing expanding expanse of soft belly fat that you really don’t need to be reminded of ? Well, that’s what I visualized. Given that, the poke was ignored.

Now, according to Facebook, “the poke feature can be used for a variety of things. For instance, you can poke your friends to say hello.” Well, doesn’t THAT tell us a lot! And yeah, like what kind of things? Obviously, the powers that be at Facebook thought it would be fun to leave this open for interpretation.

Ah, but can pokes get you into trouble? You bet. Warning: If there’s a legal order of protection filed against you, don’t poke someone! You may get arrested for it, like this Tennessee woman.

Pokes between Jessie and I continue to go back and forth. I try to poke back quickly, spurred on by the receipt of emails that inform me that, yes indeed, I have been poked by Jessie yet again. And how do I view these pokes? More on the lines of “hey, just saying hi real quick, will catch up more later.” Ah, that makes it friendly. I’m not even thinking about my tummy pillow anymore.

Have you ever poked someone? And what’s your rationale behind using this feature?

3 comments:

Unknown said...

This made me think of when I was late JR High. I had a teacher pinch me on St.Patty's day. Told the teacher if she did one more time she was gonna get smack. I sent to the office too, however the ViceP' sent me back to class and told all teachers and students over the PA that if they get smacked for pinching someone- they asked for it!

hUmanns said...

Hi there, I poke someone as a reminder that I thought about this person at that time OR just to say "Hi" without writing something to that person! I don't see "poking" as something negative! Cheers from Frankfurt - Human!

Scott Spencer-Wolff said...

Actually while I love Facebook as much as my late Aunt Marion (of blessed memory), I have never poked anyone. Somehow it just sounds rude to me - and as you outlined in your blog, the image of sticking a finger at someone doesn't appeal to me.

Perhaps its an archetypal memory of yesteryear..."quite poking your sister." (I once poked her with a dart...oh...that was fun). Or my imperious great-grandmother saying in her best WASP accent, "Dawling - we don't PO[long "o"]ke at people. It just isn't done.

So, as a facebook feature - it's just not for me. I like my Facebook family (even the conservative republicans) and the last thing I want to do is reduce the little relationship we have, to a poke.