Facebook Friends

Facebook is an amazing phenomenon. It has allowed me to reconnect with countless old friends and meet family members I never knew existed. It bridges the distance between states, countries and time zones and makes staying in touch a breeze. Over the summer, I attended a reunion of my grade school class, most of whom I hadn’t seen in close to twenty years. It was wonderful to catch up, swap stories and meet each other’s children. Facebook makes it a breeze to share stories, introduce new babies and snoop on old crushes. It’s pretty cool thing.

Except sometimes, it’s not. Like, what about those friends you actually wanted to lose touch with? If you really wanted to maintain a relationship, wouldn’t you have?* Some faces should remain just where you left them, in the past. With social media these days it’s almost impossible to do that. And then, there are the faces that you forget altogether. A few years back, I deleted my MySpace account because, for the life of me, I could not remember this girl who supposedly was a good friend of mine. She talked about our late night talks and classes together and I had absolutely no idea who she was. So, I deleted my account rather than deal with the situation. She has yet to track me down on Facebook, but I’m waiting.

My very first Facebook friend request was from a super sweet girl who I went to college with. At the time, I had been dealing with some major e-mail spam and was suspicious of a last name I did not know, and the picture was way too small to recognize. So I declined her request. And then, to make matters worse, I blocked her. Later, I saw her on my husband’s page and felt like an idiot. (Duh, Jill, he said, She got married and changed her name. Whoops.) After that, I became more liberal about accepting invitations, which has resulted in friends who I literally do not know. We may have friends in common or I know their spouse, but have no idea who they are. What’s the point of having friends like that?

Most of the applications make no sense to me. Scrabble, I get. Trivia, ok. But personally, I’ve never liked being pelted with tomatoes or eggs. If someone presents me with flowers or cupcakes I want them to be real and I have a hard enough time accessorising myself without worrying about how glitzy my page looks. It’s all just so stresful!

So, I try to limit my Facebook presence; between the applications, the games, the photos and the chats, one could waste days there. It’s a major time sucker and I, for one, just don’t have the time for that. I’m way too busy wasting time here.

*If we are Facebookfriends, this does not apply to YOU. I adore YOU and am thrilled to be back in touch. This is about all of those other people, but most definitely, positively not YOU. Kisses!