This morning I received a “friend request” on LinkedIn from an individual with whom I’ve lost touch for over twenty years. As far as I recall, we were good friends, who just drifted apart over time. Come to think of it, I believe we could still be good friends, given that this individual is still the same way, to this day. I never imagined hearing from him again. Before I could respond to the request, it was rescinded.

Huh! I was surprised and mildly excited to figure out why would someone at first send me a request, then recall it later. May be he thought, what’s the point? or Why should I? or whatever went inside his head. I searched for his name, and opened the link to his profile, at first it seemed no different than other profiles, without a photo.

As I browsed deeper through it, he turned stranger and stranger, till I realize that it’s actually not the person I imagined him to be. What could have helped, was his profile photo, if he had cared to post one. Then it dawned on me, that he probably went through the same thing. Read my profile, and realized I’m not who he thinks I am. I’m sure that he didn’t have to wonder much, why? The biggest clue was out there, my photo, and I’ve been told repeatedly, that I still do look somewhat similar.

That planted a thought, so I went to my Facebook, then LinkedIn, followed by Orkut, and finally my Twitter page. Yes, it’s Friday, and I did have some time to kill. If you’re done with your critical analysis of my schedule, shall we continue? The result of my random sampling of contacts with their profile photos, provided an insight as follows;

Of the total friends/contacts (425) across all social/professional networking mediums (some of which are on all or some of the four sites I used for random sampling), all them them can be attributed to one or more of the following categories;

Friends with their own profile photo – 172

Friends with no photo at all – 63

Friends with a photo of them & their significant others – 26

Friends with a photo of them & their kid(s) – 26

Friends with a photo of their pet as their profile photo – 4

Friends with a random photo as their profile photo – 34

Friends with a photo of them & a random friend – 3

Friends with a photo of a celebrity as their profile photo – 20

Friends with a photo of their kid as their profile photo – 21

Friends with a photo of them & someone else’s kid – 1

Friends with a photo from their high school as their profile photo – 8

Interesting, I thought. Approximately, 40% have their profiles updated with their photo correctly, as it should be. Almost 15% have something to hide (either they’re not pleased with their physical appearance or don’t want people to see it). Whatever their reason, defeats the very purpose of them being online. You want people to be able to find you and connect with you, and most times its the face that goes with the name.

Almost 6% are either way too in love with their spouses (to include them on their profile photo) or are too afraid to be appear by themselves in their profile photo, as if sending a message out to people that, they’re committed, don’t tempt them!

Another 6%, want to appear familial, projecting a photo of themselves with their kid(s), while almost 4% are projecting themselves through their kids, by using their photos as their profile photo, as if it’s some kind of a reassurance.

Almost 4% are using a celebrity’s photos as their profile photo. How stupid is that? As if people don’t know who the person in the photo actually is! For the lack of a better reason, I believe that those individuals are insecure in their own skin! Their act of hiding behind a celebrity is merely an attempt to appear, what they are not, or do believe that by having their own photo or profile info, they will not be able to pull people into staying at their page longer. Whatever, the reasoning may be, it’s flawed, and all it does is to prove, how immature you really are!

Then there is a group of insignificant percentages of individuals that are doing everything different than what the others are doing, using a random photo, photo of their pet, photo of someone else kid, etc. What can I say, what are they thinking? I guess they are so driven by an inherent desire to be different that a mere though of a conventional way seems ridiculous! I hope in time, you get to realize that it’s not what you surround yourself with, that matters, but who you really are! May be you really are weird! But then take pride in it.

May be they actually do. What do I know.