Not That Kind of Friend
How to turn down Facebook requests from co-workers, plus confessing to better deals.
I've recently been getting requests from co-workers who would like to friend me on Facebook. How do I tactfully let them know I prefer the site for personal use, separate from my professional life? It's very awkward to tell someone you don't want to be his or her online friend and continue to interact at work. N.M. / Arlington
Ask a teenager. They seem to have the sang-froid to decline friend requests from their own family members -- or ban their poor parents from even creating a Facebook account -- with complete equanimity. Shrugging off a mere co-worker would be nothing to them.
But nerve fails with age. If your nerve has failed you completely, then accept the friend requests, but sort your Facebook friends into different lists with different levels of access, keeping your work acquaintances in the outer circle. If you've a scrap of social courage left, ignore the request and explain to your colleagues how you are using Facebook. Something like "I got your friend request, Ellen. Thank you so much! Of course I think of you as a friend, but I'm keeping my account only for people in my personal life, and not friending professional contacts even if I'd like to," said in a light-yet-wistful tone implying that you'd terribly much like to friend Ellen, it's just that if you did, then you'd have to friend your boss and that annoying guy down in Receiving, and then where would you be?
And I suspect Ellen will understand. The different ways people choose to use communication technologies say more about the technologies themselves than about the relationships they facilitate. (For example, I rarely call my friends. This isn't because I don't love my friends; it's because I don't like talking on the phone.) And because Facebook is new, we have the chance to create the kind of etiquette we want for it. Do we want to be diverse and accepting of multiple uses, or rigidly conformist?
I visit an aesthetician regularly. I started buying a line of facial products from her but now feel her prices are too high. I found I can get them much cheaper online. How can I break it to her that her products are too expensive? J.R. / Westwood
You don't need to have any sort of awkward conversation -- just stop buying from her. You're not obligated to explain why you aren't purchasing the products anymore. Or you could simply say, "They're too expensive," which is true. Your aesthetician is a businessperson and understands these things. If the products are cheaper online, she is surely aware of that and can hardly blame you for taking that route once you've discovered it.
I often get anguished letters about how to "break up" with a hairdresser or massage therapist. I've never gotten one about how to break up with a financial planner or housecleaner. Those services are equally personal -- I'd rather let someone see my hair than look at my bank statements or the dust bunnies under my bed -- but they don't create the illusion of intimacy the way having someone touch us does. We are primates, after all, and we are the only species of primate for whom grooming is a cash transaction and not an expression of loyalty and friendship. I think this can be difficult for our monkey minds to process. Consciously, we know that we are customers and that salon workers are service providers, but on some deeper level we feel attached to them. I don't think this illusion goes both ways, however. Body workers of all types (aestheticians, hairdressers, massage therapists, and so on) are entrepreneurial professionals and recognize that their relationship with you is a business one. So don't feel embarrassed to treat it as such.
Miss Conduct is Robin Abrahams, a Cambridge-based writer with a PhD in psychology.
