Earlier this
month, the word ‘Unfriend’ was named word of the year by the New Oxford
American Dictionary. Defined as a verb that means to remove someone as a
"friend" on a social networking site such as Facebook, it was said to
be chosen because "it has both currency and potential longevity."
Running a search on Google on this word, I must say I am most surprised to find
loads of instructional entries on how to ‘unfriend’ someone for whatever
reasons you may have. One of my favourite lines would have to be this:
“Assuming you're sure that you no longer want to be friends, click on
"Okay" and after a moment or two that connection is broken and the
two of you are no longer friends.”
Wowzers indeed!
In the years that I have
been a FB member, I think I had only had to consciously remove people from my
listing a grand total of about 3 times. The first was an utter act of silliness
– very High School Musical which I shall not bore you with. The second was
really an act of kindness – said person did not have to know how accidentally
upsetting he can be from my status tweets. But in these two instances, in an
off-line world, we were (and remains) good friends, on good terms.
The third
was however a seriously conscious decision in both on-and-off-line worlds. And
it was a hard and painful one to make. But what needed to be done had to be
done. Though not in the manner that FB and New Oxford has so callously painted
it out to be. And so, after two long email exchanges, one final attempt at
finding if there is anything that could be salvaged, the button was clicked and
she was outta of my life.
We’re not at that age where friends come by so easily
~ the phrase a dime a dozen comes to mind, simply cos we have already peaked in
formulating our opinions, our lifestyles, our convictions – any one wanting
into this category would have to fit these criteria we have painstakingly
established over time.
I can’t say cyberspace has not done its part in better
enabling us to find people who meet some. if not all, of these criteria. And of
course, being a world that never sleeps, it enables us to find these matches
crossing geographical boundaries and time zones, without disrupting our normal
lives.
But here the deal breaker - with such unlimited freedom from our normal
parameters, it has also given us carte blanche to hurt.
Irritated with their
constant mindless banter? Click ‘Hide updates’. Not wanting to hear how their
day went? Click ‘invisible’. No longer interested in having them keep you
company late into the early hours of morning? Click ‘unfriend.’ And the best
bit of it all – as Facebook would warn you if you ever embark on this new verb:
“Your former friend will not receive any notification that you have unfriended
them.” Which means, there would be this one person, sitting at their computer,
somewhere out there wondering – Gee, have I gone and done something I should
not have?
Go back a millennia or so, you’ll find that the Old English word for
‘friend’ was simply the present participle of the verb frēon ~ to love. So
while what has become a daily part of our lives and is indeed extremely useful
– it has also cheapened and demeaned the true definition of a friend.
Perhaps
Facebook should relook at the way they have categorized relationships. Add in
categories like “acquaintance”, “cyber buddy” or even “game neighbor”. Just so
that everyone knows everyone else’s boundaries.
And perhaps while for us purist
who awaits the people over at the Facebook office to wake up and smell the
degeneration – maybe we ourselves could be just that lil bit more cautious and
think once, twice, thrice to the n-th time whether we really want to click on
that button that says “Add as friend.”
Call me a lemon. Call me a pessimist.
Call me anything you want. But trust me on this – you’ll be saving yourself a
whole load of grief from being ‘unfriend’ once your flavor has worn out.
