Facebook acquaintance
I realised Facebook had got out of control the day I found myself crouching behind the cards in WHSmith clinging on to my brother's ankles while he peered over the top of the stand to check if she'd left yet.
We were back in my hometown for a weekend and the girl I was hiding from was hardly a mortal enemy.
She was just someone I didn't, well, someone I didn't know well enough to have a conversation with. We'd been in girl guides together and she'd added me as a friend on Facebook some weeks ago, but that didn't mean I actually wanted to speak to her.
As I picked myself up off the floor and got my brother to run outside and check it was all clear, I realised it was the first time I'd experienced what Facebook actually was.
It's a good source of idle gossip – you can be constantly updated on the major and not-so-major activities of several hundred people that you know, or once knew, or are getting to know, or know your friends. You have access to info ranging from so-and-so's got married and moved to Australia to so-and-so had porridge this morning.
While I find this endlessly entertaining, in no way is it representative of the friendships I have in real life.
Facebook is a strange breed of intimacy and non-intimacy. You can find yourself in the bizarre situation where you can browse someone's holiday photos, but if you saw them on the street you'd never ask about it.
And conversely my closest friends are the ones who you would hardly know were my friends if you just went by activity on my profile.
Why? Well, I suspect it's because a lot of the public wall conversations are about posturing, time wasting and appearing to be popular, whereas with your actual friends – the ones you don't hide from if you see them in the street – you'd rather tell them things you don't want the whole world to know.
With all this in mind, I decided to have a bit of a cull. It felt very cleansing at the time – but has left me even more paranoid about bumping into Smiths girl again.
Avoiding someone if you see them in real life is one thing, but deleting them from Facebook? I'll never look her in the eye again.
Written by Daisy Doonan. Posted on 9th November.
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