Facebook Friend – or Foe?

Facebook.  At first blush, a mystifying and almost cosmic way to connect with those far and near.   A place to start discussion, share photos and life’s milestone events.  A place to make friends – and really who doesn’t want more friends?  Well I’d like to let you in on a little secret – Facebook friends aren’t really friends.  At best they are acquaintances – and at worst they are a bunch of nosy bodies that just want to compare their lives to yours.   Think about it – how often do your “Facebook Friends” call you?  On a phone.  And use their words – think auditory communication not emoji hieroglyphics.  I’m going to go out on a limb here and say not too often  – if ever.

You see somewhere along the line, instead of Social Media bringing us closer together as a humanity it pushed us farther apart.  It morphed from a way to find and connect with people to a way to “one up” them.  Its not about wanting to support others its about posting photoshopped bikini photos and trying to pretend your entire life is sunshine and rainbows and that you have a leprechaun living in the backyard.   Its not about showing the real you its about showing the “friend” you.  BOR-RING.  Facebook took the life altering interactions of real friendship and diluted them.  Because they are pretend friends.   

First of all lets clarify a real friend.  Number one – they have your phone number.  And they call you on it.  With their voice.  Secondly, they not only know the good the bad and the ugly, they are there to support and laugh and sometimes drink, you through it.  Life isn’t easy or pretty.  It doesn’t have a perfect, perky C-cup, washboard abs and a JLO backside.

Life is a mess.  Its hard, and dirty and sometimes it just stinks but it also makes us who we are and teaches us how to appreciate what really matters.  Strength.  Determination.  A job well done.  Real Friendship.  Families both born and created. Finding the love of your life and holding on tight.  Raising children  that find true joy in real accomplishments. You know stuff that you talk about with your friends.  The real kind.

I guess what I’m getting around to is the adage of quality over quantity.  You would do better to focus on the few and far between real friendships that come into your life and leave the “friends” for times you just want to creep on the neighborhood gossip and catch the latest funny puppy video.   Or figure out how you can photoshop last years photo at the public pool to make it look like you’re on a beach in the Maldives.