View Friendships: Hate It

I have a basic set of criteria for potential Facebook friends. With few exceptions (sorry Mom, it’s just not happening), as long as we have a minimum of 10 mutual friends and your name does not contain some sort of heart or star emoticon, we’re golden. Facebook, however, has now decided that hitting the “Accept” button means more than the basic understanding that neither one of us is a lunatic or pedophile. In fact, it has devoted an entire page to commemorating the lasting bonds of tags, wall posts, and picture tags.

While this sounds all well and good in theory, it is actually more like a report card for friendships. Only written on each other’s wall twice? Throw away those friendship bracelets. Only in 12 pictures together? Kick her out of the blocking group. But I’m guessing if we’re actually friends I don’t write on your Facebook wall all that often. I see you in person, around our suite, in the dining hall, making fun of other people’s Facebook walls.

This is college. There’s enough social anxiety to go around without a tool specifically for evaluating your friendships and, even more dangerously, those of other people. If you ask me, there’s enough “Hey stranger!”, “Where have you been?”, and “Remember me?” messages to go around, and the friendship page just gives people more excuses to feel the need to catch up. If I haven’t seen you lately, I probably don’t remember you, have been doing things other than hanging out with you, and, well, we probably are strangers.

Why don’t we use our technological prowess for better purposes, like creating a “Dislike” button? Then I could show Mark Zuckerberg how I feel about the fact that that girl I think I went with to elementary school saw our friendship page and thinks we totally need to catch up!