Un-Friending
I wonder if the term “un-friending” is in the Oxford English Dictionary yet? Perhaps it should be, given that I felt compelled to un-friend somebody today. A “friend” I had followed on Facebook, and via RSS feeds for quite some time.
She writes wonderfullyrelating stories, thoughts, and experiences like no other person I knowand yet those stories get edited en-mass from time to time to suit her current situation. Surely those stories all happened? Surely the past is a part of the journey that made you who you are? If you're not happy about the story you have recorded, should you have recorded it in the first place?Why present a “version” of yourself to the wider world? What is wrong with the version that the real world gets? The version with faults and fallibilities?I never really knew her that well, and for the first time I'm making the heavy hearted decision to not want to know her. There is a finite amount of time, attention, and effort I'm willing to invest in the social internetand I value honesty and truth beyond all other measures. Writing a wonderful work of fiction dressed up as your recent life goes against every trust a reader has placed in you.
So I'm unfriending somebody, and that makes me sad.