Jan
24
Before I get started with the matter at hand, I'm baffled as to why my brain chooses to give me blogging inspiration at the inhuman hours in the morning. I was just about to wrap up the day when I started scribbling things down frantically in my cerebral notepad. There are quite a few uneventful minutes in my day, Brain. Why do you always so urgently have to cut into my sleeping time?Someone may suggest jotting down ideas when I'm a little more, you know, awake. I can assure you that this does not work. See, for example, an old notepad document that I titled "blog ideas":
Reasons Why I Want a VW Beetle
Utah!
Hiccup Cures
My Brain is a Burden
How Dating Can Kill You
Do I have any idea what I'm going on about with any of these potential subjects? No. Not even a little bit. Case made.
The topic that sealed my late writing fate is Facebook, which I decided to check before going to bed. If the day involves me spending a lot of time on the internet (which, unfortunately, is every day since my job heavily involves internet usage) I end up checking this website more times than I can admit while having my dignity intact. However, checking Facebook to me is like smoking cigarettes; you get a little joy out of it in the moment and a craving is satisfied, but it's very hazardous in the long run.
I've been wondering lately why I have such an aversion to the popular social networking site known as Bookface regardless of how often I check it. This can be summed up in a basic mathematical (but this doesn't really use any numbers, so it's more like a wordmatical) formula:
social inadequacy + social anxiety (squared) x anti-social tendencies = aversion 2 FB (hardcore *)
* Maybe I would have been better at math if "hardcore" was normally used in formulas?
Explanation: I don't do well around people, people intimidate me, and that's okay because I prefer my alone time anyway. Ultimately Facebook involves people and social networking, two things I fail miserably at, which means that it baffles me to no end. I could probably share plenty of mini stories with you, but today let me tell you the tale of when I was a friend count slut.
Remember back in the days of yore of MySpace, when your friend count was tied into your value as a human being? I must have forgotten that MySpace is on its way out, now only used by people who try to make a world record of how many words they can misspell in a lifetime, and I carried this determining factor of worth to my Facebook for a minute. Maybe it's because I am a nice person under all of the layers of being so standoffish, but I add and accept anyone I ever knew by name, talked to, and who didn't annoy me completely. However, being so casual about how you befriend on Facebook only means that someone can also be casual in removing you. Easy come, easy go.
Instead of realizing that the ex Facebook friend probably thought they had an impersonal connection to their chain of friends and figured it would be fine to remove me (since neither of us talked to each other anyway), my mind ball jumped to the (not at all dramatic) conclusion of, "BAWL someone in this world hates me." I would panic a little on the inside. I would even look at other people's friend counts and compare myself to them. For someone who has such anti-social tendencies, I sometimes surprise myself how much I crave the approval of nameless and faceless people. I guess, since I am one of those people things that baffle me, I have to baffle myself as well. This bafflement (oh, hey "bafflement" is a word) includes the fact that even though friend counts don't mean near as much to me anymore, I can still tell you exactly how many Facebook friends I have. Checking the number is a habit I'm trying to break.
What probably astounded me the most is not that I lost a Facebook friend, or not that I even cared so much about it, but that I could never tell who the person was that removed me. I would pour over my friends list, wracking my brain to see who was missing, but to no avail. I gave myself cranial aneurysms over people that I didn't even notice were gone. This was a person I put little to no effort cultivating a friendship with. If I were more selective about who my Facebook friends were myself, I would probably have deleted them. One day I thought, 'Why should I care so much about a person that I really wasn't that close with to begin with?' Answer: I shouldn't. And that is when I stepped foot on the road to recovery.
The awkward factor still remains, however. Since I rarely realize who exactly deleted me, I will see their name come up somewhere and forget that that ship has sailed. When I send a request, I don't realize that I'm coming off as flailing and desperate to someone who had already deleted me. Just like a horrible image that cannot be unseen, the Facebook friend request cannot be undone. (Unless you do this. This has saved my ass from Awkwardtown on several occasions.) This more than likely leads to the person adding you again out of what they think is politeness (and is really just a beating around the bush and, ultimately, obnoxious), and then trying to sneakily re-delete you a month later. They try, and they fail, because this person is under your radar now. Your "I know you're a Facebook friend deleter" radar. I see very little point in befriending someone that you subconsciously know, whether it's in a month or in six, you are not comfortable with updating on your life and will delete anyways. I'd rather be rejected upfront.
Facebook does not alert you about deleted friends and rejected requests, even though it would prevent awkward encounters like these. The truth is that Facebook can be so impersonal that you forget that there are real people with real feelings on the other end. Before technology, the severing of a friendship involved a lot more respect. Arguably the Facebook friend deletion can be seen as a visual representation of two acquaintances that simply drifted apart, but even something as big as a break up can be done via Facebook. (Yes, that has happened to me. Twice. I have more in my arsenal as far as Facebook rants go, instead of just friend counts.)
The point is that I have an idea. Facebook should alert you of these severed ties, but in a gentle almost motherly way. Such as:
Dear Stacy,
Facebook regrets to inform you that Veronica has removed you as a Facebook friend. Don't feel too bad about it, though. You had one class with her in your junior year of high school, and you just added her to be a nice and awesome person anyway. On the bright side, this is one less person that you could run into at the supermarket and feel obligated to struggle to say things to.
Sincerely,
Mark Zuckerberg
Yes, I think Mark Zuckerberg should personally write these. What else does a 26 year-old billionaire have to do with their time?
Also, an apology letter of those hours we will never get back from checking Facebook would be appreciated.
"How dating can kill you." I'd like to see that post.
If Mark Zuckerberg wrote out letters like that, my life would be made.
At the very least, Facebook could send out an email that says "Jake has deleted you as a friend. You must suck! Or he does. ...dirty."
OMG! If you find a cure for Hiccups, I will worship at your feet.
I've actually considered going through my friends-list as of late and deleting all the friends I haven't had a single conversation with... even in High School, but who added me only because they had (maybe) one class with me in high school.
Not that I post a lot on Facebook, other than pictures occasionally.
I would appreciate it if Facebook would let you know if your friend request has been rejected or if you've been deleted, and having Mark Zuckerburg write them would just make it that much better.