Facebook Friends

Let me preface this post by saying it's going to sound harsh. Although, those of you who read this probably already know that. My friend Sarah once responded to one of my posts this way: "I think you are one opinionated boy!! You always know where you stand and exactly how you feel about things." Well, that's partially true. I am very opinionated, and I tend to voice those opinions a lot. Whether wrong or right, I feel how I feel. But that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to look at things from another viewpoint and possibly change my mind.

Today I did some housecleaning on my Facebook list. I had about 450 "Facebook friends," of which I'm sure less than 20% I talk to, look at their profiles, or follow anything going on in their lives on a regular basis. I'm even willing to bet the number is lower than that.

Does that genuinely come as a surprise to anyone reading this? How many of your Facebook or MySpace friends do you stalk (I use that term loosely - don't ever stalk people - it's creepy and could get you a restraining order)? How many of your "friends" do you talk to? How many of their profiles do you even look at once a month?

With the advent of social networking, it seems like the cool thing to do is to "get back in contact" with as many of your former friends as possible. The thing is, people don't tend to do too much to stay in touch (let's face it, it's hard to keep up with the goings on of hundreds of people). For someone like me who moved around a ton, getting back in contact means that dozens of people I hardly remember add me as their friend, maybe look at my pictures once and make a comment ("Oh cute!"), then are never heard from again.

Or sometimes I get a person who knows someone I know, or who has seen me in a play, who wants to "be my friend" (I put this in quotes, because all they usually want is to add me to their Facebook friends list - they don't typically care about meeting me/getting to know me in person).

I don't begrudge anyone wanting to get to know me, to talk to me, to be my friend. Those are all wonderful things. But let's face it - the majority of people with whom I interact on Facebook (either talking with them, looking at their profiles, checking out their pictures, even chatting with them) are people I interact with outside of Facebook. I talk with them on the phone, chat online, see them from time to time... In other words, I make some effort to be a real friend - not just their "Facebook friend."

And I'm sure I'm just as guilty of this as most people. I've added people I barely knew simply because they were in a class or play with me, or who were good friends with ex-girlfriends. I've found people I knew in high school, but who were more acquaintances than friends, and added them to my list.

So we end up with huge lists of people we never talk to, never interact with, and the worst part of it is that when you go to remove any of these acquaintances from your list, you feel guilty. You worry they'll be hurt or offended that you removed them. Maybe they looked at your profile more often than you looked at theirs. Maybe they cared more than you did. That's always the concern, and I don't have a solution for it.

However, maybe we can eliminate the worry in regard to old high school/middle school/elementary school "friends." With your friend request, send a message: "Hey. I know we haven't talked in a dozen years and were never really that close to begin with, but I saw your name on someone else's profile, and wondered what you were up to. Can you add me so I can check out what's been going on, and then I'll remove you since I'm not incredibly interested in staying in touch - only getting in touch?"

Now there would be an honest message, and one I would be totally fine getting. Unfortunately, it will never happen.

Back to my housecleaning. I realize that there may be people who read my blog who I "un-added" from my Facebook friends list recently. If that's the case, you're probably one of those people I felt guilty about removing, because you care more about keeping up with me than I thought. I apologize if your feelings were hurt, but I don't apologize for un-adding anyone, because I haven't had any interaction with anyone I removed in months (at the least).

Moral of the story? Be real friends with people...then add them to your friends list.