Sadly, it’s time to draw this to a close.

Do as I’m Told is coming to an end.

Before we get all sappy, let me give you some stats (everyone likes stats, right?).

• In the 31 days that I did Facebook’s bidding, I took 300 suggestions in all.
  
  • 222 Friend requests. 101 of these 222 accepted my friendship. This is a lot better than I was anticipating. To be honest, I wouldn’t have accepted my friendship. I have a moustache on my profile picture and the hirsute are typically shunned.
  • 6 additional groups now count me as a member.
  • I like 44 more things than I did before this all began. There are a ton of things that I like in this world, but I would be hard pressed to list these for you, let alone come up with 44 items for said list.
  • 11 messages were sent out by me because of Facebook’s prodding. I received responses to 7 of these, which isn’t too bad either. Particularly considering I haven’t contacted the majority of these people in at least 5 years. People either like the memory of me or are equally bored.
  • I suggested 2 friends to 1 person. One of the people I suggested was quite annoyed by this action. All of the people involved in this interaction were lady strangers I met through this exercise.
  • 13 wall posts to 9 people.
  • 2 causes joined.
  • Connected to 1 company - threadless.com (they do have amazing t-shirts)

Man, stats are fun aren’t they?

Alright, on to my experience.

Starting off, I was very self conscious.

This blog started off as a reaction to how annoying I felt the Facebook suggestions were and how odd I felt it was when people I did not know reached out to me on Facebook. It is also odd to interject myself into the life of another human being for the sake of a blog. I had become part of something that had once been an annoyance.

Fortunately, this got easier as I went on with the experiment. This is likely because I was no longer dealing with friends of friends. My being annoying had slightly dissipated and was no longer affecting the realm of the “real”.

For those of you who have been following Do As I’m Told, you will have noticed that I became deeply immersed in the Tantra community through my suggestions (and even two people who were involved in porn). I’m still not 100% sure where this first connection began, but I still find this highly interesting. And, it has been intriguing to find out that there is such an active Tantra community. Previously, all I knew about Tantra is that Sting was apparently into the art of Tantra.

As I wrap this up, I am appreciative of the knowledge I have gained (however limited that may be) and of the fact that a handful of people actually read what I had to write.

This blogging thing is actually kind of fun and I am currently working on figuring out what to do next. It’s unlikely that it will be Facebook related, but I’ll let you know when project #2 is up and running.

Thank you all for reading.

Now it’s time for me to clean up my Facebook account a bit. I’m really tired of Justin Bieber updates.

Facebook decided to make me look like an ass on my last day of taking suggestions and I don’t appreciate it at all.

Of the nine (that’s right, nine) friendship requests that I sent out today, there were three to people to whom I had already sent requests and they had decided against accepting my friendship (it’s fine, REALLY).

I assume it would be difficult to track unrequited friendships on a scale as large as the Facebook membership (more than 400 million according to Facebook’s stats, which means that Facebook would be the 3rd largest country in the world based upon the stats I found on Wikipedia.) But, it hurts a boy’s ego to send a second friendship request to someone who is not interested in being his friend because he made himself a promise to follow Facebook’s guidance. I’m trying to do what you want me to do Facebook! Why make me look bad?!

The other interesting thing that happened as part of the nine friendship requests is that a person who has been suggested to me thrice (that’s the fancy way to say three times) but who had too many friends to accept my request, was now available to accept friends. This leads me to believe that Facebook has a growing friendship capacity (or people defriended her).

To draw my last update on my journey to a close, I also sent a message to a (former?) friend who I haven’t spoken to in roughly 5 years. I’m not too sure how active he is on Facebook as he has no wall posts or status updates.

Fear not my loyal listeners, there will be a wrap up post coming soon. In this exciting conclusion, I can promise stats and possibly a sprinkling of wit.

with love always,

barry.

Oh, hi. I didn’t see you there.

How are you today my friends?

As you may have been able to tell by the title of this post, this will be my second to last post regarding my Facebook experiment (there may be a wrap up post or two, so don’t get sad yet).

Before we draw this thing to a close, please take a moment and read what happened in my most recent string of ten suggestions.

My Facebook day began by accepting three page suggestions from current friends.

I liked the following:

• Charlotte Anderson
  This suggestion was actually from Charlotte Anderson who is “Practicing Oneness with the Teacher.” I’m not quite sure what that means, but she seems happy.
• Vote CERENA MARY LAUREN for NEXT TOP SPIRITUAL AUTHOR
  I’d be lying if I told you that I knew anything about spiritual authors or spiritual books for that matter.
  But, is it just me, or has the phrase “Next Top” completely lost it’s meaning by this point? Tyra Banks has yet to provide the world a “Top Model,” the Food Network hasn’t given us a “Top Chef,” and so on and so forth. I’m calling shenanigans on this whole thing.
  I don’t want to live in a world where a top anything is decided by a basic cable television program or an online contest. This frightens me more than I am comfortable to admit at this point.
• divine harmony
  Astrologer and author. I haven’t read any of her stuff. Nor, do I know much about astrology outside of the Yahoo homepage or what I’ve read in Harry Potter.

Facebook is back to messing with me. It’s almost as if they know that I am nearing the finish line and have decided to make my life more difficult.

As I mentioned earlier, I am finding that I no longer receive suggestions on my main Facebook page (or at the very least, they show up sparingly) and now have to use the link that I sagely added to my bookmark bar to take me directly to friend suggestions.

And, out of my seven suggested friends today, I received two messages informing me that my new potential friends had already reached their friend quota. Yet again, why do you do this Facebook? If they reach this mark, take them out of the rotation. It is mean. And, a friend quota is kind of mean. How dare you assume how many friends they want?

Finally, I am extremely close to having added 100 friends as a result of this exercise. I’m getting a bit nervous as there is only one day left in which I can attempt to add friends. Keep your fingers crossed for me dear readers so at least five people accept my friend requests (and noone revokes their friendship based on the constant stream of self promotion that has become my Facebook wall).

God speed.

kneekeyahh:

Sometimes when people request to be my friend, I say to myself….

“Do I look like I would even be your friend in real life?”

Then from there, I just let their request sit in my “Friend Request” box thingy :)

DoAsImTold Editor’s note: There are now a couple hundred people who have made similar decisions regarding my requests.

Hello friends.

Six friend requests were sent out to lady strangers. There is only hope for five of them though, as I was told that one had too many friends to even consider accepting my friendship. Why does Facebook continue to give me a false sense of hope with some of these suggestions to only rip it away from me at the last moment? If I were a more fragile man, this would destroy me.

My former high school hockey teammate received yet another wall post. My hope is that he doesn’t actually use Facebook so that he won’t be confused by my contacting him and how out of shape I am compared to my buff high school self (I wasn’t actually buff, but was just relatively more buff).

The HUV Project (The Homeless Utility Vehicle Project) and Massive Facebook Traffic Guide are the two newest groups who are fortunate enough to have my membership. I wish them both wonderful things as we move forward with our relationship.

To draw the day to a close, I became a fan of Gaia and the New Politics of Love by Serena Anderlini D’Onofrio. This seems to be a book extolling the virtues of polyamory.

Thanks.

Although I don’t think that Facebook is reading this blog, I do believe that they have made my wish from yesterday come true.

There has been a brand new, first of its kind suggestion from Facebook.

Today, I was told to wish a happy birthday to one of my new friends. This is the first time where I have been instructed to wish someone a happy birthday (outside of the usual birthday reminders). The birthday message was to the same girl who I became friends with through Facebook, sent a message to, posted on her wall and suggested friends. I like to think that I have been instrumental in making her early Facebook experience enjoyable (then again, I often give myself too much credit).

Other than that, it was more of the same. Nine lady strangers received friend requests and messages from me seeking their friendship based on Facebook’s guidance.

Hopefully you don’t mind the mid-day posts. If you do, feel free to post and let me know about your anger and rage.

xoxo.

For the last few days of the experiment, I will be publishing midday instead of late evening.

See you tomorrow.

Today was a tad boring for my Facebook life.

There were ten friend requests made and all of them were to lady strangers.

No tantra, no porn professionals, no likes, no messages.

It amazes me how something like receiving ten suggestions all for women who I do not know was once intriguing. Now it seems so passé.

Part of the problem is due to the fact that I no longer have automatically generated suggestions on my Facebook home page. So, now I am going to a direct link for friend suggestions that I saved in my bookmarks toolbar when I had similar issues at the beginning of the experiment. This is limiting my options to only friend suggestions and leaving likes and messages out of the realm of possibilities.

Wish me luck that tomorrow will bring a bit more excitement.

p.s. I hope that I did not make it seem as if my new potential friends are boring. They most likely are fun, exciting and interesting people.

Due to the early issues of being unable to find Facebook suggestions that were automatically generated (which is happening again but I’ve figured out a way around it), I decided to allow myself to follow suggestions from current Facebook friends. This has worked out fairly well (other than making me look slightly stupid, which I’m ok with) to this point.

There was one suggestion today which I have yet to complete. It was to give money to a cause on Facebook. And, although it seems like an important and worthy cause, I am reluctant to donate for a few reasons. For one, I am nervous about giving financial information out on Facebook. And, two, I don’t know if I want to start the precedent of giving out my sweet, sweet money as a result of this blog. If you have any thoughts on this, feel free to comment below.

In mildly exciting news: I had my first male suggested to me as a friend in weeks (there were also six lady strangers suggested to me today). It was slightly confusing to see a smiling male with a beard instead of the usual lady train that is the Facebook friend suggestion. Here’s hoping that he accepts my friendship and has other males he knows who are then suggested to me. I’m getting a bit bored with the lady strangers (although they are all lovely in their own way).

Facebook seems intent on me annoying those with whom I work. My coworker who I have mentioned twice before and to whom I have sent a message and a wall post was suggested to me yet again. This time, I was told that I should share the news with her. I chose a story on the oil spill due to it being the lead story on Yahoo! News.

A woman that I have worked with for over a year and who will soon be my superior received a message from me based on Facebook’s suggestion. In this message, I explained my fun little project and wished her a good weekend. If this makes me look like an idiot at work I blame you Facebook!

And, finally I liked KAREN KELLOCK, PH.D. As you might remember, I became a fan of KAREN KELLOCK THEORIES and I am also a Facebook friend of Karen’s. So, there is a great deal of Karen in my Facebook life.

Have a wonderful evening.