During college I had a guy on our hall who used to come visit me and my roommate on a semi regular basis in the evenings when we working on our papers. At first I welcomed his visits as he seemed like a great guy who was wanting to get to know us better, but I soon realized that his intentions actually weren’t so noble. Each time he came in he’d flop down on the chair and start chatting it up with us which was great, but without fail, within four to five minutes he’d pop out the question… “So do you guys happen to have any food?”. Funny he should ask this, because his visits always seem to come just after one of us had stocked up on some fresh baking or goodies that had been sent from home (and word would get around quite quickly whenever good food arrived). Being that we were nice guys we’d always share, and sure enough, once he’d finished off the home baked brownie or chocolate chip cookie he’d chat for another minute or two and then off he’d go. One day we decided we’d had enough, so the next time he came by, we both jumped out our seats to welcome him and before he could sit down, we whipped open the cupboard to grab a care package of goodies we’d prepared. We told him that we didn’t want him to waste his time with unnecessary chatter with us as we knew he was a busy guy who just malnourished. I’ll never forget the look on his face. He was stung to the core and slowly backed out of the room with his hands full of our food, while we continually reassured him that it was ok to skip the chitchat in the future and just come and pillage whenever he had the slightest pang of hunger. Well he never did, and actually never came back to visit either.

Unfortunately the more I get involved in social media the more I encounter that same feeling that I’d get back in college. This person wants something and though they may not be as obvious as my hungry buddy, once they get what they want, they move on. Whether it’s getting a mention from you on a #FollowFriday, having you retweet their blog post, getting you to add them to one of your Twitter lists, using you to get in with someone you’re in conversation with, or many other similar things. In most cases you want to err on the side that people have good intentions and that their attempts to get to know you are genuine, but reality is that there are some that will use you. The key thing to remember is you can’t really change how people deal with you, but you can change how you deal with others. You can take the higher road. If you reach out to someone, be genuine and follow through, don’t just take what you can get and then drop them. It will leave a bad taste in their mouth about you and will eventually catch up with you.

That being said, we all realize that we can’t personally get to know thousands of people. So how have you been able to balance authentically getting to know others, fulfilling you’re needs and still having a life?