the essential questions of this post: have location based social networking services made it easier, or harder, to lie about what you’re doing, where, and with whom? has it made you more honest? do these things even occur to you like they do to me?
i was out the other night with a good friend – we’d been several places, and had dutifully checked in on foursquare at each one. meanwhile, another friend was out having his own good time, and was also checking in at each location. we had pretty accurate information about each other – he knew i was out, and that i was with a friend; i knew that he was out (though not with anyone i know). we exchanged a couple of texts and he agreed to join my friend and i at what was our last stop of the night, Schiller’s Liquor Bar, a place that unfailingly reminds me of some bar i was at once in Sao Paulo – a little too bright, a little too friendly, a little too ‘cool’. the only thing missing is Brahma beers and cachaca, which, in addition to more Brazilians hanging out in the joint, would be a considerable improvement for Schiller’s.
anyway, when Friend 2 arrived, Friend 1 and i were instantly aware of it – he checked in mere seconds before walking in the door – he announced his arrival. i realize now in retrospect that he’d done this at least once before when we were meeting somewhere; it’s actually useful – you don’t have to keep scanning the room wondering when someone is going to finally (!) get there. you just wait for your phone to light up with the news, and then look over, all cool and shit, and give them the nod of recognition. then you take your purse or coat or leg off the stool you’ve been holding and get on with it.
okay, so this is all the Internet Niceness – the part where we’re all positive and collaborative and transparent. how nice.
but then i was somewhere the other day – i won’t say where – and i deliberately chose not to check in. checking in would tip off where i was, and it would reveal who i was with – the two things i liked best about foursquare‘s help in meeting up at Schiller’s. but in this instance, those two facts taken together with the time of day would have suggested to people what i was up to, and with whom. even more so, i wasn’t comfortable with the idea that people i didn’t know, people 2 or 3 or more degrees removed from me, might know where i was, might infer something from the where and the who and the when. word, i imagined, would get out.
now, a lot of this presupposes that anyone gives a damn. i recognize the hubris in that. but it came on the heels of an evening at Housing Works for an event call Tumblr Reads.
i was meant to be there with my friend and his boyfriend, and i did get there – but i was just late enough that there was no way i was going to stand in line to probably not even find my friends inside. i did, however, take this picture.
i checked in thinking this would ‘announce’ me to my friends so they would wave me in ahead of this ridiculous line. then i remembered, Chad’s not on foursquare. oops. i retooled my plans, headed to the west village for a glass of wine at Blue Ribbon Bakery, where I also checked in. on my way, Friend 1 texted me: “are you with Friend 2?”
i knew why she asked – when you check in on foursquare, and someone else you are friends with on foursquare checks in at the same place, it says you are at your location w/ @Friend2 and # others. Friend 2 was also there, though we were not there together. we hadn’t even discussed that we were both thinking of going, and the purpose of the night was definitely not to hang out. the purpose of that night was to belt out show tunes at Marie’s Crisis. and we achieved our goals. [i don't know the purpose of his night out.]
so okay, what’s my damn point?
[yes, this is bordering on overshare. no, i don't have this badge.]
i started thinking about the downside of serendipity last night. in 8 years in manhattan and brooklyn, i’ve found that it’s easy to never run into anyone you don’t want to run into. i’ve also found that unfortunate coincidences happen. you walk into a bar and there is your ex from five minutes ago already with a new girl. you walk into a bar and there is that friend you broke up with nuzzling your boss. you walk into a bar and there is your boss making out with someone who is not her husband. you begin to think, i should walk into fewer bars.
foursquare could, conceivably, reduce the possibilities of this happening: your boyfriend is at Big Bar with another woman – if you were friends on foursquare with both of them, and they both checked in, you’d instantly know it. if you weren’t friends with both, you could still tap to see who else is at Big Bar. you could, in theory, avoid the hissy fit that would follow. contrariwise, you could show up at Big Bar for the Big Confrontation. it’s entirely up to you, because you have information that is entirely more perfect than you had pre-foursquare.
there’s also the unfortunate tendency to haunt places in hopes of ‘running into’ someone who isn’t making actual effort to see you. you pick their favorite/local and you just go there a lot. eventually, you figure, you’ll run into them. foursquare makes this easier too – when they check in, you know where they are… you can just pass by, or be in the bar next door, or pop in pretending you didn’t spot them through the window and prepare for your close up, “Oh, hi! What a small world…”
this kind of possibility makes me queasy. i’ve been in enough Drama Sitches™ that i’ve decided there are lots of things i’d rather not know. i don’t want people i’m dating to know who else i’m dating; and i don’t want to know who else they’re dating. i want to be able to have private conversations that my colleagues don’t know about. i want to be able to stay out late or be up early without people thinking they can drop by or simply monitor my every move.
i think foursquare needs check-in tags. beyond checking in off the grid, i think there should be privacy settings… checking in here “in a meeting”, or “privacy please”, or “thinking”, or “knock first” or what have you.
yes, something like that.
but this is the fundamental tension about privacy, isn’t it? there are some things about you that i don’t want to know; i typically also want very much to know these things, because i think it might actually matter in my judgment about who you are as a person and whether i can trust you or should like you. there are many things i’d rather keep to myself, but you might have similar interests in knowing those things about me. where i am, and who i’m with – that’s information i feel i should be able to control, thereby avoiding unwanted serendipity and enabling ‘chance’ encounters at my own whim.
is there a badge for checking in to a moral quandary?