Setting Limits in Social Networking

I'm the only person I know who joins social networks and then, progressively, reduces the number of friends, contacts, online buddies they have.

I joined Blogcave and BlogCatalog, and then ignored or removed contacts before closing those out. I've repeatedly pared down my contacts on MyBlogLog. And now I've just deleted a number of friends and acquaintances from my Facebook account, raising the overall privacy settings and limiting contacts to family and extended family members.

Nothing bad has happened. I just had a twing of discomfort posting photos of my mom and dad online. I wanted to share these Christmas photos with my relatives - but not necessarily with all my potential Fb contacts.

I have the same photos posted on multiply.com. Why am I not concerned about that? Well, frankly, Fb feels a lot less safe. And I don't just mean with respect to photos. Overall, Fb feels less safe.

But it is a tool for nurturing some long-distance relationships, so I guess I'll stay with it for now.

The internet can be a... challenging place sometimes.

EDIT: I went back and removed three pics from the multiply.com set.