or foe

One of the more interesting (said with the tone of someone who just found a pile dog shit in the shape of Rodin's "The Thinker") aspects of Bacefook is how it has skewed the concept of friendship.

Before i joined the ranks, years ago i was doing a training and during the break two of the women in their 20's were discussing their Bacefook pages; the behemoth social networking site was a couple of years old at that point. As they discussed how many people were listed as their friends, i asked about the trueness of the friendships. One of the women said, "I have only my closest 200 friends on it."

i am pretty sure that she didn't even hear what she was saying, or thought that maybe i was stuck in the old fashioned concept of friendship, of what "close" meant.

Now that i have an account, i try and be careful in how i use it- as many of us have found, it is great for staying in touch with friends and families who live far away, and can be a great tool for inspiring a thread on your quirky comment or an obscure lyric. However, i recently encountered two of my Bacefook "friends" in public; one was a peripheral acquaintance in high school, the other, a friends of my sister's. As i smiled broadly as they approached, anticipating a real life exchange, they walked past, not recognizing me or choosing not to engage.

i laughed at the oddness of having interacted with them through the false world of cyberspace but was anonymous to them in person.