I am a reluctant participant of Facebook. A few years ago a friend of mine (we'll call her Kaylee) sent me an invite to sign up for the cult that is Facebook.As what probably happens to everyone who joins, people start coming out of the woodwork, who seem to earnestly, desperately, want to be FB friends.
While some are people you legitimately know and fall under the category of "Oh, right, Jim, hey, I wondered what happened to him. It would be nice to catch up with him", many are people you had little or nothing in common with at the time, and now they JUST CANNOT WAIT to be your friend! Like that girl you were on the bowling league with 20 years ago, or a co-worker from eight jobs ago, or the cousin of a friend of the guy you went out with (yeah, I can't follow it, either).
But let's get back to Kaylee, that girl who roped into Facebook in the first place. Kaylee and I were friends, as in friends in the real world as opposed to friends in the Facebook world. We regularly exchanged emails, occasionally got together for coffee, and exchanged horror stories about our house renovations. But I'm finding that being friends in Facebook is a fickle, fickle thing: to quote Heidi Klum, "One day you're in, and the next day, you're OUT!"
Kaylee unceremoniously dumped me from Facebook. Yes-she dumped my sorry ass! Apparently she don't want to be friends no mo. And, yes, the irony of the Facebook initiator morphing into the one who unfriended me is not lost on me.
Then I noticed others that dumped me: a friend from the cult college I went to. Yep, he friended me, only to unfriend me. Was it the stories I posted from those liberal rags slate.com or salon? Was it my snarky remarks about, well, everything? Or did he just decide he didn't really like me after all and didn't want anything to do with me? Well, I guess I'll never know, because that's what happens when you get FB dumped. It's a cruel, cruel thing, or a very funny thing, depending on how you look at it. I think you can guess what camp I stand in.
I have to scratch my head over this form of buyer's remorse, Facebook style: let's 1) do a search to find people you know on Facebook, then 2) send a Facebook request, next 3) become friends on Facebook, then, 4) unfriend them. Yes, in retrospect this does make perfect sense--if we were all in the fourth grade again!
My theory on Facebook is that for many people, it's a way to get attention, not really to share noteworthy news, but rather a play to garner sympathy. When you post about being miserable six months after your boyfriend dumps you, or say "I'm a loser and I'll never find a job" you can practically write the posts FB friends are going to write: "oh, GF, you are so smart I just KNOW there's a great job out there" or "Jennie, you need to FORGET about that loser and get out there and find someone else!" Those comments are really helpful, aren't they?
Telling the truth like "well, you did kind of major in anthropology and yeah, it's going to be next to impossible finding a job that doesn't involve a nametag and your saying 'do you want fries with that'", apparently, this is not part of being a good Facebook friend. In fact, that'll probably get you on the fast track to unfriend-ville each and every time.
If I were a really insecure person, I'd be wringing my hands and emailing Kaylee and my college friend Peter (not his real name) or my former co-worker Lulu Belle (obviously not her real name) and everyone else who friended and then unfriended me. What went wrong? Why don't you like me any more? Why did you dump me on Facebook?! I thought we were friends! I thought you liked me! But really, who cares? Be my friend, not be my friend on Facebook. There.
