An aside: Sometimes I wonder that the grammar in my head is so poor. Still, I'm pushing 50, and will probably never think in internet acronyms. I would never think "STFU! IDK no 500 peepz!"I am not a Facebook Friend Keep-Tracker-Of-er, so I was shocked to notice, in the last few weeks, that I was at 502. Or something. Who are all of those people?
A second aside: Is the 2nd paragraph of a blog post too early for an aside?
I by-God decided to find out. I exported my friends list, and imported them into Excel. I created a series of categories and ticked them off. Here are my findings, because I know you want to know:
104—Friends
74—Family
65—Blog friends
62—High School Friends
57—Business contacts
44—Soldiers and Toys for Troops
33/24/18—People I Know Through Clint/My Dad/Brian, respectively
19—Who the Hell is That?
1—Reno Wilson
1—Dog
This is all very scientific, and categorizing was challenging and thought-provoking at times.
- I've met many of my friends through work. Hmmmm! Friends or Business?
- Some bloggers have become my best friends also. I had to put them under the Blog column.
- Clint's family: Do I put them in the Clint column or the family column?!! I wouldn't even know them without him. Hmmmm again.
- My sister's in-laws and nieces and nephews: If they were hers they are mine. Family.
- Reno Wilson didn't fit anywhere. He plays Carl on (The Number #1 CBS Comedy), Mike & Molly, and he's my Facebook friend because I asked him to be, because my other (real) friend Mark Roberts created that show. Mark didn't even get his own category, he was added to the "friends" column.
Aside #3: If word gets out and other celebrities would like to friend me, I'd accept. Of course, then I'd have to create a "Celebrity" column, and Reno would no longer Lord over his own column. It's a dilemma.
- "Soldiers": Over 1000 deployed contacts over the last 5 years, and "only" 44 have friended me on Facebook. Good! I welcome every single one of them, but I'd rather they focus on staying alive, and keeping in touch with wives, children, and their own mamas, over finding us on Facebook.
- "Who the Hell Is That?" category: I'm actually too embarrassed to admit I don't know who the hell they are. I just keep Liking their updates.
- I think a dog unfriended me, because I'm pretty sure I used to be friends with 2 dogs.
NUMBER TWO: It is not terrible to have time and energy for the inane.
500 friends.
Who'da thunk it?
I'd really like to take each of you to lunch.
Lunch? I'm in. But not with the other 499. I want to be special.
ReplyDeleteI just recently unfriended a bunch of people I don't even know. None of them got back to me that their feelings were hurt, so I guess they had no idea who I was either.
ReplyDeleteFacebook is such a time suck. I rarely go there anymore.
Jazz
PS: Blogger won't let me post from Wordpress when there's word verification, maybe I should just friend you on FB.
So that's what you were doing while we were all at the Annual Meeting... ;D
ReplyDeleteNic
Yes, while you were floating in a pool for 6 days (isn't that what everyone does at A.M.?), I was studying Excel, honing my math skills, learning how to make graphs and pie charts.
ReplyDeleteGood thing we are blogger buddies instead of FB friends. I think giant numbers are weird and I pride myself on keeping my number as low as possible. I am at 85. My rule is: Don't friend anyone unless you would give them your home phone number. I'm hoping in the next year or so I can get down to 75. Maybe I'm just strange. I've heard that before.
ReplyDeleteBut, Gee, you're missing out on captivating updates about how I sunburned my feet, and much, much more! :-) I have 74 family members, and 3/4 of my cousins aren't even on Facebook. I love that FB has brought so many cousins back into my life when my immediate family grows smaller and smaller.
ReplyDeleteAnd Larry, of course. No one else is invited to OUR lunch!
ReplyDelete