On Being “Unfriended”

Judy McGuire at The Frisky wrote another priceless article for CNN this week, about what to do in the wake of being “unfriended” by a “BFF”. I’m not really familiar with either of these terms, because…well, I’m a man. We are not emotional beings who are controlled by our current state of mind. Not everything we do is dictated by how we “feel” at a given moment. We just use logic to sort out situations. Nevertheless, I think what she’s trying to say is that she lost a friend, or something. Boo fucking hoo. Stop being such a queer about it. “We were having problems that had culminated in a huge argument the day before.” Really? What does she think she’s doing, dating somebody? God, I can imagine why her old friend was so quick to pull the trigger and X her out. She’s a needy cunt! If anyone — even you, reading this blog post — has never been deleted from someone’s list of online friends to this point in your life, there’s definitely something wrong with you. It’s definitely not an uncommon occurrence. I can’t even count the number of people who have deleted me as a friend on some insignificant social networking site. If this is the kind of shit Judy McGuire spends her nights worrying about, and her days writing about, the lady needs a damned hobby.

This bitch just goes on and on about how it shouldn’t hurt, but oh, how it does! If ever there were a prime example of “oversharing” to be read and understood on the Internet, it is this article. She gushes more to an audience of millions than I would feel comfortable doing to a diary, were I the type of person who kept one. How could a girl ditch another girl! How could a…a…friend…ditch another friend! Unfathomable! Inconceivable! Blah blah blah.

It’s not hard to understand the bitch is upset about losing a friend. We’ve all lost friends. She’s just sensitive, so she thinks writing about it will bring her closure. The truth is, losing a friend rarely matters in the long run. People make new friends. Old friends are forgotten. Whether you burned out after an argument or faded away following a period of distance, odds are that person has already been replaced, or will soon be replaced by another friend. It’s definitely not worth the hassle.

What’s hard to understand is the moronic social networking aspect of this. Anyone who actually gets upset at a friend and deletes them from a list of online friends is a retard, plain and simple. It is the gayest form of melodrama since P.T. Barnum opened the first theater on Broadway. It’s actually way more retarded than the person who gets upset about being “unfriended,” but that’s not the point of Judy’s article. Her point is that — well, I don’t really know what her point is, but it is definitely insane. I’m very happy to be a male when I read articles like this one. We don’t have “BFF”‘s, we either have friends or acquaintances. There’s no hierarchy. No one deserves preferential treatment.

If you asked me right now how many Facebook friends I have, I couldn’t tell you. If someone out there asks to gain access to my current status and my digital photo albums (really that’s all an online profile is in the grand scheme of things) I let them. 99% of the time, if someone removes me from their list of friends, I don’t notice. That 1% is discovered when I wonder what a person is doing with their life and I realize I no long have access to their photos. It doesn’t bother me because why should it? Instead of wasting five minutes catching up with someone, I’ll call them or e-mail them. That’s the extent of my care. I would assume that is the general consensus as far as this situation is concerned, but poor little crybaby Judy McGuire makes it sound like it’s some horrible nightmarish situation where everybody feels awkward and you passive-aggressively hint to your friends that person A is an asshole who “unfriended” you, or person B is an asshole who deserved to be “unfriended”. It’s just not worth the effort, and it’s not worth the time. Like I said earlier, all social networking websites are portals for people who are too self-absorbed to actually go about contacting you and talking to you, which is how a friendship is made and maintained. If someone can’t partake in the most basic tenets of human interaction, there is no sense in letting those sentiments influence what you do when you’re online. Call ‘em on their bullshit and work it out, or don’t and be okay with it. End of story.

Judy McGuire of The Frisky, please don’t write any more articles for CNN. They’re getting progressively more brainless, and it pains me to have to respond to these pieces and express thoughts I would ordinarily ignore as basic, self-explanitory bullshit.

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