Friend or Unfriend, That is the Question

Have you ever received a friend request on Facebook that was from a childhood buddy that you had lost touch with over the years?  Remember how nostalgic and good you felt when you reconnected?  How viewing pictures of their family and sharing important life events, that passed over the years, gave you that warm fuzzy feeling that was absent since youth?  How reading their status updates made you smile? That friend is not the one I am referring to today.  I am referring to the friend who reaches out to you and you begin to think that time apart was a good thing.

Shortly after that on-line reunion, your new old friend starts spamming you with invitations to play various games aka mindless time sinks cleverly disguised as entertainment.  It was easy to ignore the invites, even when they spammed your news feed begging for assistance to complete their game quest.  The game high scores were easy to overlook as well.  It was still a good "friendship".

Then comes the daily onslaught of quotes.  Sure, we all put up a random quotation from time to time, but your new old friend suddenly takes on the role of zen master and feels the need to share a minimum of twenty quotes each day for everyone's personal enlightenment.  While your friend offers such sage advice as "Live life as if you have never had heartbreak", your own personal view is "When life gives you lemons, add some amaretto and drink that bitch!"  So when you receive notifications of recent activities from this friend, you start to skip over their status updates whenever it involves a quotation and you wonder just how many more quotes about life's hard knocks and coffee addiction could possibly be left in the universe.

Soon after comes the "Click if you love Jesus" or "Click and show your support" for some other cause.  You realize that many years have passed and this friend may not know that you have become Mr. Grinch personified.  He could not have possibly known that your religious beliefs were different now and while you might indeed love Jesus, you do not feel like you just hopped on the rollercoaster to Hell  because you chose  to not click on said religious scare tactics.  Also you are pretty damn sure that your not clicking on the "save the sick baby" post will not cause them to circle the drain or push up daisies anytime soon.

Perhaps you find that you and your new old friend have different views on family values. You begin to see  cryptic status updates about how awesome their lunch dates are.  Then comes the flood of pictures that your friend takes of himself with his smart phone.  You think the status updates are a bit odd from someone that is supposed to be the very picture of a Norman Rockwell-ish like existence--at least all their posts bragging about how great their kids are certainly gave that indication.  You also note that those head shot photos are much more attractive than the full body shots.  Not that you have ever done the same thing with your own pictures......

Then comes the election year.  Who knew you were such a liberal?  At least you are in comparison to the severe right-wing teabagger who has taken over your news feed with links to Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin.  You are a registered Democrat who votes your conscience, irregardless of party affiliation, unlike your friend who claims he will leave "the greatest country in the world" if that Socialist gets re-elected.  You wouldn't dream of posting negative rants about the candidate that you are not voting for and had hoped that your friend felt likewise.  It is about this time that you begin to ponder whether or not to unfriend your new old friend.

At last you see a UK basketball status.  Why yes!  You do actually have something in common with your new old friend, but is this the sum total of your similarities now?  And if so, are you really friends?   Or is this someone who only looks good in your memories and serves to annoy the hell out of you in the current decade?

So you begin to increase the amount of time that you  hover over the unfriend button.  You consider putting your new old friend on the rapidly growing list of the "do not show in news feed" category.  But then a funny thing happens.  You find that you really love to hate their status updates. You find that your friend's status updates are like a real life soap opera that only you....and hundreds of their other close friends get to watch on an almost daily basis--and on particularly good days you might get to view multiple episodes. That is when you realize  that new old friend that made you smile years ago still has the ability to make you smile today.   The circle is complete.