The Fake Friends Of Facebook

The tick-tock of the internal clock in my head helps keep time of the clinkety-clank of the weights I am pushing and pulling at the gym.

Sweat drips down my face and into my eyes, blurring my vision and making it hard to see.

At the moment it doesn’t matter because my arms are burning and I am trying to squeeze out a couple more reps.

I am 30 minutes into the workout and 48 years into a battle of wills. In a moment I’ll rack the weight and catch a glimpse of my reflection.

There is a sneer on his face and I understand why…everything feels like it is harder than it needs to be.

I pause to catch my breath and take a moment to check my phone. Got a few new emails and some update from fake friends on Facebook.

The Fake Friends Of Facebook

I think I joined Facebook in late 2008, mostly out of curiosity and some idea that it might help me reconnect with some old friends.

It definitely did that but for a while it was also a place where you collected people because your friend list wasn’t made solely of real friends.

No, it included people from all of your school years and an assortment of others you sort of knew because of him and her or this and that.

And if you were among the crowd that chose to play Mafia Wars you friended a ton of people you didn’t know but who could help you become a powerful mob boss.

That is how I ended up with more than 3,000 friends and the realization that I didn’t want a ton of fake Facebook friends is why the list shrank by the thousands.

I got rid of most of the Mafia Wars people and unfriended bunches of other people that I knew in real life  but didn’t have anything to say to.

I’d say it wasn’t personal, but in some cases it was.

I remembered that  we weren’t close because you were a jerk or because we had nothing to talk about and I didn’t feel a burning need to keep you in my life.

That is not unusual and I am sure some people unfriended me for similar reasons.

Season Of The Witch

You can blame Donovan for the subhead because I am listening to the song and thinking about how I called a few people a witch or something that rhymes with it.

Unless they can read minds they didn’t hear me because I thought it and didn’t say it.

It is a moment of transitions and big challenges which are trying my patience in all sorts of fun ways.

Most of these things are good and leading to a much better place but there are some pretty hard things too.

Something about it all has made me very cognizant of who is reliable and who is not, who I can ask for help and who I can’t.

It is kind of funny to say that because I hate asking for help and generally won’t so maybe it is  hypocritical for me to think about it.

But when you are taking a beating sometimes you find yourself looking around the ring to see if someone might ring the bell or tag in.

So I look at Facebook and ask myself what would happen if I cut out another 50 or 100 people.

Would I notice they were gone? Would they notice I was gone?

Does it matter if the answer is yes or no?

Should our Facebook be made up solely of really good friends or can it be a mix?

There is no right or wrong answer and it might change depending on time and circumstances.

****

The Green Mile is playing in the background and I am thinking it would be nice to have John Coffey here.

Hasn’t been a day in forever in which I have felt ok. There is always something going on and it would be cool to ask Coffey for a hand.

Can’t do it so I have to rely upon confidence that once some of the things going on settle down my stress level will accompany it.

That ought to have a real impact, in the interim I am doing my best to sweat it out or write it off.

That is the measuring stick.

Close your eyes, look inside and let the heart guide you where it will.

Some will follow. Some will go and some will be sent away.

Sometimes you are simply done.