When to delete facebook friends (throwing stuff out)

Gone are the halcyon days when if you lost touch with someone you genuinely had no idea what they were up to until you chanced into them in the frozen food aisle at spar.  What have you been up to?  has been replaced with "I saw your photos with your boyfriend and your 3 sisters that I didn't know you had, how's your job (that you didn't tell me about), I heard you lost your stapler" etc etc.

 

Social networking - an interesting phenomenon - a sort of periscope on everyone's lives that you've ever met (well sort of).  Ever find yourself snooping on someone's page?  Did you have a look at how they were doing, poke around in their photos?  Have a look at who they were friends with? 

 

Did you send them a message?  Or just move on?  Like a kind of social information locust.  That's how I feel sometimes.. quite often I look at how many friends I have on facebook (it's about 290) and I think... who are these people?  Do I know who these people are?  Could I name three interesting facts about them?  No, at least I can't until I break into their published lives and learn it by scouting around on their page for 10 seconds.

 

Don't recoil, you know you've done it too.

 

I seem to be friends on facebook with about 50 people I went to school and university with.  And above a slight curiousity about whether or not they are president of their own software corporation (not bill gates, I'm only 28); or have married grace kelly, I am not really interested in talking to them....

 

being a musician (albeit one on the upward slope of popularity shall we say) I have lots of friends on facebook who I have cajoled into signing my mailing list at a gig, and who I am trying to shepherd into being part of the groundswell of fame and fortune as it builds.  So I don't mind genuinely really not knowing a lot of my facebook friends, it's part of the territory.  It's the people who I used to know and who I haven't spoken to in years, I don't have their phone number and I wouldn't ring it if I did - these are ones whose presence on my friend list vexes me (yes, it vexes me)

Or even worse when you are doing your locusting... you find out that someone you used to be involved with is now involved with someone else!  And you're still single!  How could this happen to me!

 

Don't worry, there's always the "remove from friends" button at the bottom left if you get cross - it's magic (trust me).  Just be careful as you can find yourself in the situation where you wish to restore someone to your friends list (been there too) - there's an awkward moment.  And being removed from someone's facebook friends seems to have become the cardinal insult!

 

Anyway adam's pre-new year message is this.  I am going to stop pretending I am in touch with people because I comment occasionally on their status update saying that they just hoovered the lounge.  I am going to use something called my mobile phone. 

 

No... the "call" button!  Texting is so 2007.

 

In the spirit of deleting people, I found two whole bags of stuff worth throwing out one evening a couple of weeks ago.  Try it.. it feels great!  Having a tiny room it also makes a huge difference.

 

Album still in progress.. on schedule for January 09 (2 months late). 

 

Adam