Imitation of Life

Wherein the untrodden territory of online networking brings out the teenager in me.

In the general repertoire of put-downs, “that’s so high school” packs a particularly dismissive punch. But sometimes all it takes to zap the  most upstanding adult back to the social habits of those formative  teenage years is the prospect of navigating unfamiliar territory. And nowhere is this more evident these days than in online interactions.  (Think about it: The last time you expressly asked someone to be your  friend, there was probably a sandbox nearby.) It was my indoctrination  into a site that aspires to promote the most grown-up pastime of all— networking, of course—that managed to bring out the most juvenile side of my personality.

It all started at Rosewood. I was there for a birthday party for my friend Elaina, and she introduced me to a cute photographer named David who had recently moved to the city from Boston. David was looking for leads on freelance work, so I volunteered the names of a few contacts I thought might be helpful. We talked a bit about the East Coast versus  West and things of the sort before I realized I had to excuse myself to  meet the girls for drinks at Rye. “Can I get your card?” he asked as we said good-bye. I eagerly passed it on—hoping he’d get in touch to meet up again.

A week later, I checked my email and saw David’s  name at the top of the queue—embedded in a message from LinkedIn. I’d been a member of the site for a while,  but true to my online habits, I’d yet to make any effort at  putting together a profile or even fully understanding the way the site functioned—instead, I blanketly approved  every request I received to “link” and then forgot about it until the next request surfaced in my mailbox. “Natalie, I’d like to add you  to my professional network,” the generic message informed me. I clicked  “approve,” wishing his email had instead read, “Natalie, I’d like to buy you a  martini and,if all goes well, possibly make you my wife and buy a house together in Sonoma.” 

“This could be his warm-up to asking you out,” Jules hypothesized when I told the girls about the LinkedIn request. “Doubtful,” Sia said. “A text, an email, a coffee invite—those are warm-ups. A LinkedIn request is strictly  business.” I was inclined to agree with her—that is, until I saw another email from David, acting independently of any third-party online entity. 

“Natalie, thanks so much for passing along those contacts—I’ve  already got a few gigs lined up! Now that I’ve safely got some income in  the works, I would really love to buy you a drink.” Well that’s more like it,  I thought. The girls were cautiously optimistic, but opted to postpone  judgment until after I saw him that Thursday. Before we could gather  further evidence, however, I received yet another LinkedIn message—this  time from an acquaintance named Mandy.

She was a friend of a friend, and we’d met on only one occasion, a  couple of years ago, right after she’d moved to the city. Mandy meant well,  but there was something decisively off-putting about her: her too-loud laugh, her too-small sense of personal space and, most troubling of all, her  way of insisting that I weigh in on her curiously strong opinions. (“Dogs in  the US are far more well-behaved than dogs in Europe. Do you agree?”) It  stressed me out so much that I’d spent the two years since we’d met  guiltily putting off plans to meet again.

I’d completely forgotten that we were “linked,” in fact, until she surfaced in my mailbox, requesting an introduction to David—a simple enough-seeming transaction that involved my forwarding her request with a brief explanation of my tie to each person, thus implying some sort of endorsement. Apparently, Mandy worked at an ad agency and was looking for freelance photographers for a new project. For some reason I hesitated to make the introduction—I barely knew David, and now the second  impression he’d be getting of me would be via Mandy. Perhaps anticipating that I would avoid her request in much the way I’d put off seeing her in  person, Mandy sent me a personal follow-up email alerting me to the  LinkedIn message. Clearly, I had no option but to make the connection. 

David and I had made plans to meet for a drink at Zuni Café, and after a minute of exchanged niceties, he brought up the fact that he’d already met with Mandy. “Really?” I said, trying to sound casual. “How did it go?” 

“Fine, I think. So you two...

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