I was merciless. I cut people from high school, people from summer mission trips, people from a semester abroad, family friends, college classmates. I even cut a few sorority sisters. The carnage was severe.
Except, that I'm not too upset about it, because in the world of social networking I still have 373 friends left over.
If you can still see my Facebook profile, you should be proud. This means that I have measured our relationship and come to the conclusion that 1) You are actually my friend/family member; 2) I am open to maintaining contact with you; or 3) Your life is interesting enough for me to want to have access to your page to see what you are up to, even if in the real world we wouldn't necessarily fall into the "friends" category. Because after all, what's the point of Facebook if you can't engage in a bit of stalking now and then, right?
(NB: if you have fallen into the "chopped" category, so to speak, I hope there are no hard feelings. We probably weren't that close anyway, and if you want to be able to stalk my life, reading this blog is a much more effective means of doing so.)
Lately, I've come to appreciate true friendship. The kind of friendship that doesn't mind waiting an excruciatingly long amount of time for Thai food because we needed to talk anyway. The kind of friendship that includes phone calls to talk about nothing every other day. The kind of friendship that willingly listens to emotional monologues about depressing recent life events. For me, friendship is absolutely vital for maintaining some scrap of sanity.
I think the influx of technology on the world has gotten everyone excited about "connecting" the world while completely undermining the value of true CONNECTION with people. Connecting is overrated. Actual connection is what counts.
And, without question, I'd rather have 10 good friends than 400+ Facebook "friends."
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