I'm going to go on Facebook and unfriend all of the people I vaguely dislike so that when they look at my profile again after twelve years and a mountain of therapy, they will be struck anew by the fear and guilt of not having truly befriended me in life: their current antipathy will then look to them like the decision of a madman, and the "friend" button will appear to be their only solace. Yet: should they friend me, or would the action be too much? Surely the shame of sending a second, more sedate and sorrowful friending will make up in my heart for the years we spent in shadowed and roiling dislike and yet the truth is that knowing I, Robby, hold the power of redemption over them, that they will needs be shamed into reaching out so visibly, that I will then KNOW that they know that I know that the "friend" bond has been broken will be too much to bear and they will embark on a quest to expunge my memory from their life and expurgate the searing regret from their heart.
In due time, all my enemies will realize that I play for keeps.
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See, this longer version makes more sense than your Facebook status version.
ReplyDeleteIn a way, then, one makes the enemies into friends and then no longer has enemies. Intriguing. Very Lincoln-esque.
I'm glad you play for keeps. It's good to have friends who do. I'm glad of such friends, even if it took me a while to find them.
This sounds like a joke. A rather awful joke.
ReplyDeleteYou're important, but you aren't Christ. And being unkind to someone who was unkind to you first (intentionally or unintentionally) just makes the problem worse.
Friending people on Facebook is important for lots of people, even if it isn't to you, and by all means, avoid the people who wish you harm, but don't expect breaking a bridge with them to make them want to be nice to you.
The odds are at least ten to one that I am overreacting to something you said to be entertaining, but this still bothers me, joke or no. I used to think that way and have to fight very hard not to now.
I laughed a lot while reading this. I don't know if that was your intent or not. I suppose it was because I consider FB as a mockery of friendship, and the idea that somebody might feel remorse for not "friending" someone else is quite funny. I like your purging idea, though. I regularly go through and delete people I haven't had a real-time conversation with in the past year. I'm still curious, though, why would you be "friends" with someone you don't like? Is it a numbers game?
ReplyDeleteTotally a joke. Glad you laughed, Alyssa.
ReplyDeleteBasically, I was not aware that this was an unknown thing. Society hasn't actually developed to the point at which we fully understand everybody's different views on Internet friends. It's new. Anyway, I friend anybody I recognize. I never delete my twitter followers. I don't mark things as private. I have nothing to hide and I put almost no value on whether or not a friendship is "Facebook official."
Mostly, it's a weird social thing caused by an innate fear of being ignored. I guess.
Anyhow, I've never deleted a friend on Facebook. Not worth the trouble.
Double P.S. sorry to have ruffled feathers.
IF YOU UNFRIEND ME I WILL MAKE A DRAMATIC STATUS UPDATE ABOUT HOW FACEBOOK IS A WASTE OF TIME AND FOR THAT REASON I AM QUITTING IN A HUFF
ReplyDeletelet's do this
THE GAME IS A FOOT
Delete(the play is a hand)
See, I usually joke about making a friendship "Facebook official" because it being on Facebook doesn't make it official.
ReplyDeleteI've also decided that if I were to ever start dating someone, I'd try to conspire with them to wait until people figured it out because that might be fun. Knowing myself, it would also probably be terribly difficult but I don't know because I've never been in a relationship like that. Granted, I just ruined the plan by revealing it here.
(I was recently surprised when I discovered that a friend from high school had blocked me from following them on Twitter. I don't know why; I guess they just didn't want me. I would have liked it better if they had asked me to stop following them, which I would have respected. Whatever. They can do what they want.)