Kitten roulette…

I’m still removing dead friends (both real and figurative) from my list, but I’m running out of options using my existing criteria. Perhaps the criteria aren’t wide enough or maybe I need new criteria. What should they be though?

There are always those people who have overly sentimental profile pictures - cherubs and kittens, fat puppies and roses. The ‘aw cutes’ as I call them. Maybe I should lose them, although I have to admit to being partial to the odd cute kitten picture or two. Maybe I should apply the opposite and cull those who have strange profiles pictures, in which case I suppose I should cull myself. But what do I do with the people who have strange cute profile pictures - the suicidal kitten people?

And what about the ones who are way too smiley? My happy-clapper friends, the ones who constantly post positive-thought statements or ask me to share if I have a mother/father/sister who I love/respect/miss/are thankful for. Personally I could easily reply to these with something less than positive, but I try not to - so help me God – and as for reposting my feelings on family… well, I wouldn’t lie.

I did consider my friends who make no sense at all. But I actually like people making no sense on Facebook. Besides, I fall into that category myself. I enjoy the enigmatic ‘That was that then.’ or ‘How did that happen?’ with no explanation as to what the event was or what the outcome was after the event. I even like the occasional bit of Zen: ‘When rain comes, seek the rainbow.’ So truly, deeply, meaningfully Om.

Maybe I should ditch the gamers. After all, do I really care that John has just beaten Janet on SongPop or that Mary Contrary has ploughed her turnip field yet again? Bejeweled, Candy Crush, Farmville, Bubble Island, Pet Rescue Saga – am I really interested in your latest score? Just a sec, let me think about it. Errrrrrrrr… no. How many points do I get for that?

How about the people who simply have too many friends on their friend list? Some of my friends have over 1,000 other friends. Just how can you have 1,000 friends and give any of them any attention at all – particularly me, me, me? I’m struggling with under a quarter of that number; hence my clean-up operation. Besides, if I did use total friend numbers as a maker or breaker, what should that cut-off number be? 500? 800? And what if a friend had 501 friends? Could I really justify taking them out just because they were one friend too many on the culling scale?

This culling thing is turning out to be much harder that I expected and I’m not quite the serial culler that I thought I’d be. To date, I haven’t taken down a single friend that will even know about it, and I’m down around twenty including the ship jumper. At least I would be if I hadn’t accepted three new friends over the last couple of weeks. The target I had in mind was around 200 total, but I’m not going to get anywhere near that. I’m not ruthless enough and I’m certainly not going to close my account. That would be too much like Facebook suicide for me to take.

Yep, Facebook might not be real life, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t have to be careful out there. Not everyone uses and treats it in the same way. One mans quip is another’s insult, another woman’s murder someone else’s mercy killing. It’s all too easy to hurt without intending to. Best save the hurt for those that deserve it. Share if you have a mother/father/sister…

I guess I’ll be culling a while longer yet. Be seeing you.