Hey Jeffrey, it was fun “dancing” with you on the networks last night. I’m re reading your post this morning and realized I am not quite sure I understand your question because I think I experience this online thing in a different way.

For me, my communities (CoPs and otherwise) generally have distinct boundaries and more attention to the community aspect – attention to relationship, who is present, who is missing and thus the term ‘friending’ actually has some significance. My NETWORKS on the other hand, are made up of people with whom I have found some connection — most often topical or content related — but who I often don’t really know. So I don’t need to spend too much time and psychic energe processing the relationship part – if it comes, it comes. if not, it is an emphemeral connection.

Both are very useful. Both are different. There is no way I could fully attend to the personal relationship aspects with everyone I interact with on the network. It would blow the top off my wee head. Some of them ARE friends in the more traditional manner. But many are simply connections.

In that “freedom” I don’t have to spend more of that precious psychic time worrying about “pushy” or “rejected.” I save that for my communities. 😉

Does that make any sense at all?