Facebook friendship. It's a convoluted concept. I currently have about 159 people in my friend list. That number would have been 162 except for the following:
- This one is a little bit of a stretch, but: There are multiple people that I've tried to friend (because in the world of Facebook, friend is a verb as well as a noun) that have ignored the request for whatever reason. I'm sure there are plenty of reasons to not want to be my Facebook friend, some of them having to do with me, others having to do with one's standards for accepting friend requests. Those are all fine. What bugs me in the case of one person in particular is that he rejected my friend request because he believes stories told by mutual acquaintances over my description of events. Whatever, it's not like I'm lacking friends in the world, I just hate that he's using bogus reasons to reject me over the many perfectly valid reasons for rejecting me.
- Some time ago, I friended someone on Facebook that I knew from another forum. We were certainly not friends in real life, but Facebook doesn't have an option for "acquaintance" or "someone-I-barely-know" so I went with the only option available to me. He accepted my request and I followed his updates and made the occasional comment. After one of those comments, I noticed "Add as Friend" on his page when I tried to read a response to the thread. This was for daring to state an opinion that there are nutjobs at both ends of the political spectrum, not just on the right. How Dare I!
- Then today, I responded to a status update from another 'friend'. He'd stated that Glenn Beck & Dan Rather were equally bad / evil / nutty / some-such. I commented that I thought Dan Rather edged Glenn out because Glenn is upfront about his conservative bias and doesn't try to hide behind journalistic integrity or ethics or sanctity or some such, as Dan Rather does (IMO). He winds up 'apologizing' with a sarcastic 'sorry but you are wrong' which I chose to treat as sincere in my response with a "don't be sorry, we just disagree, nothing to be sorry about". Lather, rinse, repeat. When he decided to point out his sorry was sarcastic, I might have crossed the line with a comment about how I understood his sarcasm, but just thought "don't be sorry" was easier to type than "be careful, you're sounding like a right wing always right never wrong can't respect a difference of opinion radio host!"
Okay, that last comment certainly did nothing to elevate the conversation. To be fair, I originally friended him to snipe at him a little (he's the guy that wrote a parody based on an idea I had and then didn't even credit me for it ... until much later, then he gave me more credit than I expected, but whatever), so it is not like I'm blameless in this or anything. I am however tired of his constant complaining about talk radio hosts (Glenn Beck in particular) when it seems obvious to me that his real problem is jealously that he can't get a long lasting talk radio gig (which means he isn't getting the ratings management thinks are possible with some other host or show) when all these commercially successful yet oh so inferior hosts are drawing huge ratings on hundreds of radio stations.
I wound up writing him a parting message after he unfriended me:
Nice job. You're a very talented guy, but just as big an ass as those you sit around being so sanctimonious about. Sorry that a difference of opinion makes you feel you need to talk down to me (your "hope that clears things up" comment), and that my final comment made you feel that you needed to unfriend me. Oh, and I'm not being sarcastic in my use of the word sorry.
Have a good life ... and I hope something comes along to make you feel better about yourself so you can do more than whine on Facebook about those radio talents you're so jealous of.
I really mean what said about being sorry. It is regrettable that someone with so much talent (and he is a very talented guy) is so threatened by a difference of opinion that he needs to condescend and finally just block the source of the disagreement.
I guess I'm just an awful person.
PS It turns out that he's spoken to a mutual friend and complained about my mouth. The only thing I can think of is that I said "ass" in my email above. Which is really funny since he called a bunch of people assholes earlier in the day in another status update. Of course, his comment was directed toward an anonymous group of people that would likely never read his comment, whereas I directed my comment at someone who would actually read it. How politically incorrect of me!
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