When Dodgeball came along a few years ago (has it really been that long? Wow.), it proved to be a great way to connect with friends somewhat randomly without you having to do the tedious work of actually calling them up and arranging a meeting. That was when me and a few friends coined the term “passive aggressive socializing” because that was essentially what it was — you’re attempting to socialize by sending out a message to a group of friends at the off-chance that MAYBE they’re in the neighborhood and that MAYBE they even want to find you. There’s nothing terrible about this — I have personally used Dodgeball in this manner, and it has worked — but it can lead people to be incredibly lazy about building and maintaining relationships. Why bother to actually invite someone to a party when you can Dodgeball it to everyone and be satisfied with whoever shows up? I recall a few stories of people feeling miffed that they weren’t invited to a party that someone dodgeballed about, when in fact the Dodgeball message WAS the invitation. See what I mean?

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. As Web 2.0 trucks along, there are now many ways to flex your passive-aggressive socializing prowess. You can broaden your social network by adding random people as contacts on Facebook, or Upcoming, or Pownce, or MySpace, or some other Web 2.0 social network. While not the same thing as Dodgeball, the broad use of the term “friend” (which has apparently lost all meaning in the Web 2.0 world) does create an illusion of socialization without you having to actually.. you know.. socialize. Of course, there are services like Twitter that does make that distinction clear — the people you’re following aren’t necessarily friends; they’re just people who post things you’re interested in — and not all Web 2.0 social networks fall into this category. But the more popular ones do.

Let’s take Facebook as an example. I make it a point to only “friend” people I actually know — or at least know enough about that I don’t mind reading their posts. I don’t want my Friend Status page to get cluttered by people I don’t care that much about. But, I also understand those who befriend everyone — hey, it can be interesting to take a peek in other people’s lives. That’s fine. What’s weird, however, are the people from my long-ago past adding me as a Facebook friend without me hearing from them for years. When this first started happening, I was very intrigued. Wow, I can’t believe these people remember me! Wow, look at how he/she has changed! Wow, I’m impressed she works there now! And so on and so forth. It was a wave of nostalgia that was not altogether unpleasant. What ended up happening though, was that the socialization ended there. These long-ago friends of yesteryear added me to their Facebook friends list, and left it at that. No further messages. No further interactions. That was it.

Now, maybe they were waiting for me to make the move in sending them a message. The passive-aggressive bit begins. Do I say something? Do I just accept their friend request and leave it at that? That was what I ended up doing, because there didn’t seem to be any indication that they wanted to communicate. But then they started inviting me to install Facebook apps. “You have been bitten by a Zombie!” Or “You have been invited to a game of Scrabulous!” Which, again, is fine and all, but this still feels like a bizarre interaction to have with someone you haven’t met in years. Weirder still is when you participate in these virtual games with someone you used to be friends with — “She.. bit me and now I’m a Vampire? Wait…. should I be taking that the wrong way?” There’s a similar rant I could get on about co-workers trying to do this passive-aggressive networking thing with LinkedIn, but that’s a way hairier issue than I’m willing to get into here.

But that does bring me to the point that it’s not the TOOL that’s the problem, it’s the people who are using the tools. For some reason, there are people who willingly give in to the convenience of not having to talk to people to be friends with them. So this is a partial theory for the phenomenon: Passive-aggressive socializing comes naturally to the socially awkward or to socially awkward situations. It’s hard for people who are rather shy like me to go out there and make friends with a bunch of people, and it’s easier to just send tiny little messages here and there into the ether, hoping for a connection. And maybe that’s how these passive forms of online communications exist — to give a voice to people who don’t know any better, who are too scared to bridge the gap, who are too introverted to speak. Which is understandable, but also a tiny bit sad. And as for the long-lost friend situation, maybe there are simply too many years between us for either of us to even feel comfortable saying something as simple as “Hi, how’ve you been?” But, for some reason, it’s way easier to send each other Facebook app requests. Anything to avoid actual communication, eh?

So… I don’t know. It’s not like I don’t *like* these social networks. Hey, I wouldn’t participate in them if I didn’t get some small enjoyment out of connecting with friends and people I know. But once the social network begins to replace interpersonal communication, that’s when I get weirded out. People seem to forget that these online social networks are primarily built to strengthen relationships, not become a substitute for one. I’ll admit that I fall into these traps too, which is why I’ve been making some small attempt to reconnect with friends and meet them in person (what a concept!). Heck, I’ll even take IMs and emails at this point. Better than just sitting in silence waiting for someone to speak.