The Friend Dilemma.

I can remember when I first got Facebook. My friends and I were so excited because all of our friends who attended "real universities" had already had it for a month or two and couldn't stop talking about it. I added people I hadn't talked to since high school. I added people I hadn't talked to since junior high. Then I added people from elementary school. (Actually for me, all of those people are kind of the same...but whatever.)

Then there was a time when you would meet someone and then later that night receive a friend request from them. Everyone thought the concept of a "Facebook friend" was hilarious. The fact that you had to confirm or deny a friendship was too much. But we added everyone we knew, new and old friends and even people we hated.

And then we got a "new Facebook" and everyone hated it. We all slowly adjusted, signed petitions, and joined groups to re-instate the "old Facebook", but nothing changed. So we learned and got over it. But then they did it again. Yep, the Facebook dudes.

And in the midst of all this, they added apps. Big mistake. HUGE. And so now we have these people who send us lil' green patches and hit us with water balloons and add us as their top friends and we decide they just have way too much free time on their hands but we don't know what to do about it because they just fill up our homepages and we never really liked them in the first place and these Facebook dudes tell us that the solution is less friends!

What?! They want us to DELETE friends when we just spent 4 years finding everyone we've ever known!

Yep, it's true. It's the new trend. Less friends, more homepage time for the people you actually care about. Last week my friend was telling me he was "down to 215 friends!" and I just had to laugh because before visiting him and his wife in FL last week, I probably hadn't seen or talked to him in almost 2 years...and I was surprised he hadn't deleted me! (He must have anticipated the visit...) I also was just thinking about a friend from college who had a baby and how I hadn't seen pictures in a while. I typed in her name and guess what? She deleted me!

I'm sorry, but I just can't do it. I've never really heard anyone tell me I'm too nice of a person, but I just can't delete people. I've only ever deleted one person, and I've felt horrible about it ever since. (Except for right this moment when I can't really think of who it was...but it will come to me and then I will feel awful!)

I have 552 friends and I plan on keeping all of them. Facebook dudes, find another solution.