An observation that turned into a rant.

Will the Facebook generation really know the definition of the word "friend"? I have to wonder. Not that I don't understand why the owners of Facebook chose that word. I mean what else are you going to call them? It's just that I have to wonder: is there anyone out there stupid enough to think they really have 400 friends? Don't get me wrong I am on Facebook. I have a lot of Facebook friends. I have people I have never met or spoken to, I have people I have only met once, I have current and former co-workers, I have acquaintances including some that I don't like at all. I have some relatives and some close acquaintances as well. Buried in that pile somewhere are some people that truly are my friends including a few who are my very best friends. These are people I grew up with and have loved for most of my life. They are people I miss and pray for and hope they are well and worry about when they are not. Facebook uses the term much more liberally. These are the things people really do on Facebook: 1) Write about the minutiae of their day to day lives under the delusion that there are 400 people out there waiting to hear what they had for lunch, 2) Whine and complain about something that no one in their immediate vicinity wants to hear about, 3) Fish for sympathy or compliments by posting how sad they are or pictures of themselves that they think actually portray them as they assume they look, 4) Like or comment about other peoples' posts so those other people will think they really care, 5) Stalk people they hate in the hopes that they will know immediately when something bad happens to them.

Like I said before, that mainly goes for the people who are not your friends. You may do similar things with people you care about but the added ingredient is sincerity, which is very poorly represented by Facebook. On the other hand, there are those that hijack Facebook to promote a particular cause or political agenda. While in some cases I support their agenda I only rarely indicate that on my page or click on the thumbs up for them. To me it's just an inappropriate place for a grass roots campaign. I mean look at NASCAR. There are lots of ads on the cars and we know why they are there and expect to see them. Those same ads would be out of place on a coffin or church sanctuary. If you are friends with someone don't abuse that friendship by using it to promote your agenda.

I go back and forth on Facebook. I stay on because I occasionally find some use for it. I catch myself doing the same things as other people. However, I don't know about you but my favorite thing to do is to go down my page and selectively delete posts that are of no interest to me. I'm try to make a conscious effort not to know what movie you watched last night or what your favorite restaurant is. I honestly don't care and even a thumbs up would be a lie. With me you will get my honest opinion. In lieu of a thumbs down that turns out to be an instant delete. Then you go back to being in my stable of people that I know are there but I don't feel the need to pretend we have some kind of closeness that has never really existed between us. It should go both ways. I post plenty of narcissistic crap on my page that I just like to see there. I seldom read the comments or look to see who thumbed me up. Thanks for your interest if you did but I don't really care. Don't pretend to be interested. That's not what friends do. Despite the fact that Facebook calls us all friends let's not muddy the water by actually acting like it. Let's not let Facebook tell us who we are to each other. Their is more subtlety and nuance to the range of human interaction and levels of connection which are infinitely for complex than "friend" or "not friend". Let's keep it real.