I have a sad announcement today. It is with deep regret that I have to announce the loss of a friend on Facebook. Someone I’ve known since high school just unfriended me. Despite my best efforts to keep this cyberfriendship going – the annual “Happy birthday, <fill in the person’s name>!” post, the occasional “Like” attached to a picture of their dog or some other snippet about their personal life – despite all that intense effort, he tossed me aside like a sack of dirty cryptocurrency.
Perhaps, this is a lesson in not getting involved in political discussions on Facebook. Should I remain calm, never allow my blood to boil, and stay above the fray as one inane post after another piles up? Let the senseless braying of my opponents flood the digital realm. I’ll take the higher ground from now on… Whom am I kidding? I can’t let these namby-pamby ninnyhammers ply their nonsense. They have to be stopped!
Did he think I would go cry in my room? Cower under my bed until the reverberations of his “Unfriend” diminished and it was safe to come out? I’m not the coward. I’m willing to have a reasonable, rational discussion. Not him. What could have led him to make a decision like this? How did it happen?
I can see it all in my mind. He sat at a desk wearing a pink robe and fluffy, bunny slippers. He fired up his laptop while sipping a chamomile tea and nibbling a buttered scone. I’ll show him, he thought. I may not be able to beat him in an argument. I may be incapable of combatting his wit and wisdom with any logic of my own, but I hold one final card! The Unfriend click! He poised, mouse in hand, a picture of two kitty cats jousting over a bowl of yarn decorating his mouse pad. A gleeful smile crossed his face. Our cyberfriendship is over! I could almost hear him harrumphing as he clicked on the “Unfriend” button. Harrumph!
The next morning, I pulled up my Facebook App, waiting to read through his latest irate ramble. Imagine my shock when not only could I not read any of my previous posts, but I discovered I couldn’t see him at all. And when I searched for him, he was nowhere to be found. The child!
My only mistake was in not having my brilliant responses saved to my laptop. I was all set to have them printed and displayed within a golden frame, perchance engraved in stone tablets for posterity. It’s a small satisfaction knowing that I was able to irritate him enough to unfriend me.
What about you? Ever been unfriended? Why? Any regrets?
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