I was unfriended on Facebook last week (the actual me not the Flasher persona). Seriously. Harsh. However I got to thinking. You see I was unfriended for "making no effort". The next evening, walking to The Meatball and Wine Bar (awesome - go), I recounted all this to a buddy who replied "but you don't even make an effort with people you like!".
And it wasn't as though I didn't or don't like this person who unfriended me, quite the contrary. It was just that our acquaintance had moved from inner to outer circle. I had thought that was what Facebook was good for. A handy method of staying in touch with all the people you are genuinely interested in but have no time or inclination to physically see. Am I wrong? I suspect to many of you I sound more than a little Aspy.Don't get me wrong, I do get it that some people like to spend time with all the people that they like. I just happen to like a lot of people and simultaneously not like to socialise too much. Pathological as this may sound, there are days, weeks even, that I look at my phone and think "please no one ring me".
So that night at Meatballs, with someone who has known me since day dot, we laughed at why anyone would expect me to actually make an effort. I won't. Not because I am slack, or a bastard but because I find the whole idea daunting and overwhelming. I have about 20 favourite people in my life and think very highly of the Facebook others. The thought of ever "making an effort" to see them fills me with social phobia and brings to mind Karl Pilkington. To quote him:
"I won't be socializing. I don't do that. I'm just not that sort of person. I'm old in my age now, I've got enough friends". - Karl Pilkington
I feel quite at ease writing this because I know that friends of mine I seldom see know me so well that they too probably read the opening paragraph and laughed. It is not personal, honestly. My true friends know that I like being close from a distance. They know that I think they rock, but they also know that I probably won't call them. So with this in mind, today I decided to feel okay about making "no effort" because fuck it, we are who we are, headlights shining in the dark night and all.
Today I have done a little unfriending of my own. I decided to cull people that I would avert my gaze from in a crowd. I went from 347 to 260. None of these were bad people I just didn't need to know them and they didn't need to know me. I am pretty stoked. It is totally liberating to unfriend and I highly recommend it. I have also discovered that I actually know 260 really awesome people. And no, I probably wont call them.