- You don’t give damn about me but you want a higher friend count.
- You don’t give damn about me but you are sure happy to gossip about me.
- You have put up with my crap for years and for some stupid reason you are my friend in real life too.
The first group of friends will never take the time to actually look at my profile, and they will never click on my blog link from Facebook. I could call them by name and write things like: “She sure got fat since exiting the crack-cocaine scene of the ‘80s”, or “He is a gas attendant; too bad all that Future Farmers of America training didn’t work out for him", or “Those are some weird looking children but with her elongated forehead and his buckteeth, there just wasn’t much hope.” They would never know because they are too busy searching for another 157 long lost friends.
I am really trying to not be this type of disinterested friend. But sometimes when I see the name of someone that I had conversation with 20 years ago, I can’t control the Friend trigger-finger. In theory, I should only send friend requests to people who I would actually want to talk to in real life. Yeah, that probably won’t happen. I am a Facebook hussy who friends everyone. I will continue to electronically befriend acquaintances from the past who will eventually become part of my second group of friends: You don’t give damn about me but you are sure happy to gossip about me.
These members are the cyber-gossips who scour every profile looking for crow’s feet, gray hair, a weight gain of anywhere between 15 and 35 pounds, divorced status, unemployment, and education details with no graduation date. This group will absolutely link to and read my blog for 4 reasons:
1. They will want to see if my writing sucks.
2. They will want to see if my life sucks.
3. They will want to see if I have an ugly husband and alien-looking children.
4. They want to gossip about me and other people. These virtual pseudo friends will happily tell the ex-cocaine addict, the wannabe farmer turned gas attendant and the breeders of ugliness what I wrote along with a message that reads: “Melissa is the same two-faced loser that she was back in the day. Like any magazine would ever run her stuff.” This will only be sent after the cyber-gossip completely agrees with what I wrote and quotes it to 71 close friends.
I struggle not to be a Facebook gossip, but I am losing the struggle. I confess that I once sent a friend request to a girl from high school because in her small thumbnail profile looked picture perfect. So, I had to have access to the larger pictures to look for weight gain, age spots, wrinkles, yellow teeth, or mild hair loss. Nope. Nothing. Completely flawless as always. I was elated for her. Really I was. No, really I was. I have evolved.
Of course, the third group (my real life friends) knows that I just completely lied. This group sadly makes up the smallest amount of my Facebook friends and is really the most irrelevant. Not irrelevant because they don’t matter way, but irrelevant because we email, talk on the phone, and hang out in real life. So why do we have to flaunt our real friendship to our virtual pals? However, when perceived real life friends don’t respond to private messages sent to their inbox, it makes me wonder if those friends belong in group one or group two. (Mr. Senior Year Prom Date, I am talking to you. Hope to see that response in my FB inbox soon).
Actually, I guess there is a fourth group too: You just met me; should you be afraid? This group consists of my new acquaintances such as Moms Club members, my kids’ babysitter, my realtor, and my hair stylist, who will probably check out my blog to be polite and to learn a little more about me and family.
After reading my blog, chances they will be afraid, and I will have a lot of my free time on my hands when playdates are cancelled.
Guess that just gives me more time for cyber-stalking.
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