You have too many friends. You may not realize it, but there are hundreds of people walking around every day with the power to claim that they are your friend. You probably talk to a small minority of these people, yet the remaining majority lies in wait. Like the monsters from whom you used to hide at night, who were mysteriously repulsed by the blanket pulled over your head, these friend-poseurs are out there, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
These ethereal stalkers are your 700-plus Facebook "friends," a convenient list of everyone you've ever touched, seen, smelt or heard (hopefully you haven't tasted too many of them). In the ridiculous effort to set up large social communities on Facebook and the potpourri of other "social networking web sites," we've shattered every semblance of respect and dignity that the word "friend" previously possessed.
Pardon me while I adjust my suspenders here, but way back in the last millennium when I was a boy, "friend" was a title of honor marked by deep, mutual understanding. Friends were the people you could trust with anything. Of course, on the rare occasions when they broke that trust, producing a storm of angsty Livejournal novellas, you always forgave them; you didn't want to lose their companionship in the long run.
Now, thanks to Facebook and Big Brother, everyone in your network is your friend! Anyone to whom you've been casually introduced is your friend. Anyone with whom you may have taken a class but to whom you have never spoken is your friend. Anyone whose face you don't know but whose name shows up in that accursed "People You May Know" box is your friend.Did you make eye contact with someone on the Green today? There's a friend request waiting for you online. Did you happen to breathe today some of the same air that someone in Vermont happened to exhale a few days ago? Click to confirm your pending friend request.
Naturally, we still need a way to designate the people we really trust and honestly, truly enjoy being around, just like in middle school when we had to develop a special code for boys and girls we like-liked ... like, in THAT way. Hence the concurrent deconstruction of the term "best" friend. With the boundaries of friendship all tangled up in the internet's tubing, best friend has become a pluralized expression. People these days seem to have 15 or more "best" friends, which seems to defeat the purpose of having a "best" in the first place. Just imagine if there were 15 Best Pictures at the Academy Awards or 15 Best New Artists at the Grammy Awards.
To be brutally honest, I'm wholly fed up with it all. This abuse of the English language must stop. I want to call someone a friend and have it mean something again. That's why everyone should engage in a massive Facebook Friend purge. The next time that you're racing to finish an assignment 15 minutes before it's due, go on Facebook instead. Find the list of all of your friends, ready your mouse and start clicking X's. Anyone with whom you don't have a meaningful relationship needs to go so that those who remain can take more pride in being called your friend. All of the rejects should be exiled into the Siberia of acquaintanceship, forever forgotten in the annals of your Mini-Feed history.
If you don't mind having a faade of a social circle whose conventions are confusing and cumbersome, then by all means, ignore my message. However, if you, like me, feel that it's time to call it like it is, with friends, best friends and acquaintances all in quantitative harmony, then be brave enough to dump a few Facebook friends. They probably won't even remember you were ever there.
