Trimming the Fat

Remember when the phone would ring, and you’d answer, “hello?” and you would legitimately not know whose voice would buzz down the wires to you? Or getting the newspaper every day and reading about things that were honest-to-goodness news to you?

There are many aspects of our lives that I feel have been somewhat compromised by recent developments in technology and social media. Things about which the crotchety old lady in me waxes nostalgic. Having a household phone number, getting letters in the mail, and reading books with pages are among those mainstays of 20th Century life that I still miss.
Today, I’d like to take a moment to address that age-old and time-honored tradition of civilly, undramatically, even elegantly, drifting away from certain people in our lives.

Gone is the need to stop when a long lost song comes on the radio and ask, “wow, I wonder whatever became of so-and-so?” Because you know what? So-and-so works part time at the Applebees in your home town, has two boys and a sweet little girl who is potty training (O.M.G.!) and for date night last Wednesday with their AMAZING significant other? They ordered the prime rib with sour cream mashed potatoes and a side of braised asparagus. It looked *divine*.

I like Facebook. I really do! I love the way I can address my friends and family in an open format without the mess of long email strings and reply-all fails. I don’t want to ditch FB all together.

I gotta say it though, I really miss drifting apart.

So folks. It’s time to trim the fat on my Facebook feed. My question is how. What is the etiquette? How do we do the polite and passive “drifting apart” when every. friggin’. day. I’m privvy to when you go to work, how your kids’ soccer games went, and what inappropriate pages you “like” on FB (“I love sexx” …seriously??)

Do I write one of those status updates that says something along the lines of “if you can still read this after my (probably) inappropriate and prolific election season postings (AKA if you haven’t blocked me!) and you’d like to continue seeing photos of my incredibly cute children, please like this status and I won’t unfriend you!”

But seriously, who would NOT want to see this face in their feed!?

These statuses annoy me. I don’t like having to reaffirm my friendship with people. Sometimes I ignore and figure if I’m expendable just because I didn’t respond, well then I guess they can go ahead and unfriend me.

Do I just go through and unfriend people who, by all accounts, would probably not recognize me in the street unless I was wearing the same clothes I wore in my yearbook pictures? Do I draw the line at folks with whom I never actually directly interact and who only post pleas to rescue abused puppies and “hit like if you love your dad/hate cancer/breathe air”?

While this seems to be the obvious fix, I – and I know this is really dumb – am afraid of hurting peoples’ facebookfeelings! I can’t win. Do I just hide their feeds? Maybe.

I guess if I’m being honest with you, I probably won’t do much of anything at all. Combinations of laziness, fear of hurting someone and, yes, even fear of missing out on something hilarious on the web, will probably stop me. But mostly, it’s probably just the laziness.

If you feel like commenting, let me know what you do when you feel the need to trim the fat.

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