By John Gavin
I’M GOING TO UNFRIEND YOU.
I’m sorry, and I don’t mean anything by it, but, well, you’re not really my friend. Truth is, I don’t actually know you. Not only have I not met you, but I’ve never even spoken with you on the phone. And I’ve certainly never been over to your place. In fact I’m not exactly sure what state — or country — your place is in, specifically.
So how did you and I get here? Things had been going so well, hadn’t they? When you sent me that friend request about six months back, I thought, “Sure, what the hey? I have no idea who this person is, or how they found me, or why they want to be associated with me, or if they’re in prison, or if they’re actually my crazy ex-girlfriend posing as somebody else again, but why not add them as a ‘friend’?”
You can never have too many friends, right?
That’s a philosophy I think came about because we are such social creatures. But it occurs to me that we used to just be social — to one extent or another — with those we physically encountered. That’s what we were taught growing up — to not be impolite. But now, because of the Internet, we interact with hundreds, even thousands of people. Now we don’t know the people over at the next table in the coffee shop, but we are “friends” with a dentist in New York and a plumber in Tel Aviv.
And here’s the most amazing part of the Facebook phenomenon to me: Before you know it, you’ve got 100, 200 or more “friends.” And most of these people you wouldn’t know if they hit you over the head with their laptop. You then confuse them for real friends and don’t want to disconnect from them.
Which is when you sort of realize the page is controlling you — not the other way around — and you try to regain control via a horribly termed process known as “un-friending.” Ugh. At which point you’ve now hurt the feelings of someone you have never met, and will never meet.
Nice.
Oh, and then you get to look forward to that email you know is coming from your newly un-friended ex-friend — the one with all the grief over how horrible a person you are for doing what you did.
To a friend you never actually had!
And the truth is, anybody you had a five-minute conversation with at Starbucks last week is more of a friend than someone you’ve never met, who sent you a friend request six months ago and who’s been privy to the innermost thoughts you’ve been posting since then. But wait, you tell yourself, those innermost thoughts weren’t really all that revealing. Heck, half of them weren’t even true, were they?
And that’s where the other most amazing part of the fascinating Facebook phenomenon comes in: We lie on Facebook. And yes, I mean you. And you — and you over there as well.
Yeah you, the guy whose waist size reflects his Doritos addiction. How funny that you post your membership in the “Organic Only” FB page. That and the “healthy living” and “super-fit studs” pages.
I’m not just pointing fingers here — I do it, too. If you looked at the “Likes” on my FB page you’d see ones such as “feed the hungry” and “save the animals.” But you want to guess the last time I fed a hungry homeless person? Or saved a raccoon?
Uh, I’m pretty sure the answer is never.
I think this is what we do on Facebook: We try to turn our virtual existence into our real-world existence because, well, because it’s just way easier. It’s a method of projecting a pretend version of ourselves onto the world at large.
Our “likes” and “shares” show all these amazing facets of our projected selves for others to marvel at. Trouble is, most of it isn’t true. Or it’s reflective of who we want to be — someday, maybe after we win the lottery.
It’s sort of like those online dating site profiles (wow — just had a flashback there) that we decry when we find them to be factually incorrect: He wasn’t really 6-foot-1 — he was 5-foot-8! And: She wasn’t really 32 — she was 45!
I guess Facebook is a sort of pseudo-dating site on which we’re somehow afraid to show the warts that real people will see when they really meet us in the real world. On Facebook, we’re asking to be courted by, and validated by, a society we’re afraid won’t like us for who we truly are.
It’s that intrinsically American phenomenon of holding ourselves, and others, to a higher standard publicly than we do privately.
Facebook is turning us into liars.
So yes, my ex-FB connection, I lied to you when I said we could be friends. The truth is I had kind of forgotten what a real friend is, and how many of them I actually want to have. I don’t want 200 friends. I don’t even want 20.
And you want to know why?
Because when a friend calls to say she’s getting married, I’m going to cancel that incredibly important appointment I already had for that date — the one I worked months to secure — and tell her that no, I had nothing planned and yes, I’d love to help her celebrate the joyous event.
And when a friend calls to say he’s having trouble with his relationship and isn’t sure which way to go, I’m going to spend as long as it takes on the phone listening to every last detail so I can help him find his way back to happy.
And all those people I’d do that for would drop everything to do the same for me. Because that’s who friends really are.
And I’m sure you have those in your life, too — but when you need them, and they need you, the call won’t go out over Facebook. Because most of those people are pretend friends.
And pretend friends are about as valuable as your old MySpace page.
Benicia resident John P. Gavin is the author of “Online Dating Sucks… but it’s how I fell in love.” You can find it at onlinedatingsucksbook.com or at amazon.com/dp/B009ZYYDVE.
Local Crumudgen says
I’m sure the people you de-friend are REALLY torn up by it… (eye roll).
Adis Skepsis says
Why did you accept their friend request in the first place?
Adis Skepsis says
I agree with the following. So well said.
“I think this is what we do on Facebook: We try to turn our virtual existence into our real-world existence because, well, because it’s just way easier. It’s a method of projecting a pretend version of ourselves onto the world at large.
Our “likes” and “shares” show all these amazing facets of our projected selves for others to marvel at. Trouble is, most of it isn’t true. Or it’s reflective of who we want to be — someday, maybe after we win the lottery.
It’s sort of like those online dating site profiles (wow — just had a flashback there) that we decry when we find them to be factually incorrect: He wasn’t really 6-foot-1 — he was 5-foot-8! And: She wasn’t really 32 — she was 45!”