Surely I cannot be the only one reading Facebook fights this week about health care. I’ve even participated in one of them—with the Friend of a Friend.
Which led me to wonder all over again why the hell I am in touch with people who I let go of decades ago. Was not that a natural progression, to say farewell more or less forever to the people who just happened to be in my second- and third-grade class? What made me think I was wrong to have let the past slide into the past? Why do we need to pretend to be pals with people who were never really our pals to begin with?
Facebook sure as hell makes me wonder about these things. And more.
Sure, I hate the Friends of my Friends. Everybody does. Oh, maybe that’s an overstatement, but you know what I mean. After I finish reading the political views of my supposed Friends, I question whether I even want to be in touch with some of them. Especially this week, when the hardcore Republicans have come to define bad sportsmanship. They like to lose in the meanest way possible.
I’m grouchy, I know. But I’m also serious. There are things about Facebook that I really like. I don’t think the whole thing is a fake community or always a waste of time. I recognize that this may be the way we communicate with large numbers of people, even if I’m put off by the sonograms and the obituaries and all the news that I used to get via a phone call, which did seem a tad more intimate.
Not long ago I had a boss who used the word “friend” in a wildly ridiculous fashion, saying “my friend Kevin” or “my friend” this or that. The people who worked for him were aware that these people were in no way his friend. He wasn’t. It was sad. If anybody had actually liked the guy, they might have told him just how sad.
Now I wonder if we are all like that. We will be in big trouble, won’t we, when we are unable to delineate even a rough definition of the word “friend?" And sometimes I feel like we are headed that way.
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I must admit, I was amazed to discover how many long-ago friends became Republicans. Even worse, to discover that some actually call themselves conservatives as though they're proud of it!
ReplyDeleteI tend to call some of these people from my past lives my "Facebook friends," since truth be told there are many that I never said more than three words to aside from the mean, nasty mutterings I kept under my breath. (Perhaps I shouldn't be surprised some of them were Republicans and conservatives.)
But I will not be cynical. I actually was "friended" (why is this a verb?) by a person after one of those Facebook fracases because I maintained my composure in the face of a spray of sour grapes from a Republican doctor. Perhaps needless to say, my new friend calls herself a Democrat.