Do single people use Facebook more than married people, or coupled people? Is it really just an elablorate dating site for those interested in (re)connecting with those they (used to) know? Do happy people or sad people use Facebook more often? Those who live in the cities with their families or without?
How many friends is too many? What’s the point of “defriending” versus “hiding” on your newsfeed? Is that person really of so little value to you that it’s not worth it to keep them, even on a virtual back burner? What if you need to contact them to ask who their dentist is?
Why am I not friends with hardly anyone I went to elementary school with? What’s the deadline on friending people who you should’ve friended in the first two years of being on FB but did not, and now it has been six or eight, and you all have survived without each other this long, but why? I would totally read your status updates. I would totally click on your wedding pictures.
I am often bored with my newsfeed; what is my resistence to expanding it? Why do people call it “cleaning house” when they go through and defriend people? How many phone numbers are in your phone that you don’t use and is it the same thing? (I say no.)
But I won’t friend people who I don’t know. If you don’t know me but you like this blog, then like the DMP Facebook page or follow me on Twitter. FB is for people whose faces I have seen, hands I have touched, people who I played duck duck goose with or more likely who tripped me on the asphalt. I check my security settings regularly. I don’t have friend groups; I don’t post anything that I’m not willing to let everyone I am friends with see. I’ve defriended someone once, when I wasn’t interested in giving that person information that could remotely clue them in to my whereabouts or even my pyschological state. You’re allowed to cut people off who are toxic. But those who are merely unnecessary at this moment? Things change. You can’t re-friend. It’s awkward. They know. Believe me. You would know, wouldn’t you.
When will we start handing out our FB contact info to strangers we meet in bars (but do we do that, anymore? or do we just FB message people we once thought we could’ve had something with?) rather than phone numbers or even emails? I’d like that. Feels safe, if clunky.
I had goldfish when I was younger. My parents tried many things to keep me from begging for a dog: goldfish, cats, newts. All of these were terrible animals. The cats were lazy, dumb, and skittish. The newts ate their own feet and released some sort of toxic smell from those little white nubs that never went away. The goldfish wouldn’t stay alive.
