There’s a word whose meaning has changed greatly in the past few years.
It used to be that someone was your friend because you liked that person, you had things in common, you did stuff together, you made each other happy.
Now it’s someone who knows someone who knows you and clicked that little button on facebook. You can’t say no, because then they’ll want to know why you don’t want to be friends. You don’t want to say yes, because you really don’t know the person, but you do it anyway, to avoid hurting anyone’s feelings.
People grew apart, didn’t see each other every day, stayed friends – or at least felt some affection for each other even if contact was minimal. That was part of life People change, they don’t like the same things they did years ago, and they may like you in small doses. I have friends I see rarely, speak to once a month, call or text on occasion. I know people who are annoying in even small doses – and they probably feel the same way about me.
And yet, they’re “friends” of mine. Daily, they post updates, often several times. It’s like getting endless phone calls to tell me that there’s a bird on the bush outside. Thanks, there’s some information I couldn’t live without today.
Then there are the cartoons. Endless cartoons about how bad ass they are, what bitches they are, their road rage and their impatience. Trust me, we know all this. Posting it on facebook every day does not make you a bad ass. It makes you someone trying to convince other people that you’re a bad ass.
Or they post recipes. There’s this handy site called pinterest that lets you collect things like recipes and patterns and cute little sayings, all in one place, so you can find them later, and you don’t aggravate your “friends” with them.
But that’s another topic. Friends – once they’re on that list, you can’t get rid of them without hurt feelings. It’s not just one way, I was recently “unfriended” and it pissed me off for days. Weeks! I proceeded to block the offender, if he doesn’t wish to be my friend, he has no reason to see my posts. So there.
It’s still Summer. I don’t want to think about Winter. I don’t want someone telling me how close it is, or how many days to Christmas, or how bad the weather is going to be because they saw a three headed toad and that means we’ll get 4 feet of snow on Columbus Day. If someone said these things to me, I’d tell them to knock it off, and it’s doubtful we’d be friends for long. But facebook, oh, that wonderful thing – it’s not so easy.
Is it worth the stress to be connected to people I don’t really like that much? I don’t think so.
Suziecreamcheese Sings the Blues 
