Pretty Profiles, Pretty Pictures, and a Few Plug Nickels, Too

You see, there's a point one gets to when you just don't really care anymore, whether someone "friends" or "unfriends" you on social media. Because these days, that's just how it works. Meaning that the whole paradigm of friendship essentially no longer means nearly as much as it used to anyway. Well, not on social media, it doesn't.

In fact, what really matters the very most in this Life is who you can actually touch. No, not necessarily "touch" in the sense of being able to physically reach out and embrace someone or other, but rather, whose Life you may be able to affect in a positive and meaningful way. Or perhaps even someone who may be able to help you yourself in that regard in return. You know, when the chips are down. When you, or they, literally have no one else to turn to.

Because you see, having a big old "friend list," full of all those... those names... the names of people that one could not even possibly even speak to on a regular basis (or they to you) doesn't make anyone rich, powerful, or even necessarily all that influential. Heck! Some of your "friends" may even be laughing at you. And not the good kind of laughing, which is with you, and not at you.

And that right there is often just how "social" media interactions, and most classic human acquaintanceships, really just plain work anyway, silly! You see, even and especially nowadays, with the big, fancy Internet, people can easily "follow," "hide" from, or even outright ignore your posts and shared content at any time of their choosing. They can even block you altogether, and that, as they say, is that. Out of sight, out of mind.

Or... they might also just humor you, by "liking" every other thing you post. Psst! All of us fancy "connected" folks, we're all sitting behind "personal" computers, you know. So nobody is really beholden to anybody else. And nobody really has to give a crap about absolutely anything anyone says or does. Well... unless you're in someone's immediate family, or you happen to be a co-worker or something of that nature.

So you see, these days, people don't even have to "unfriend" you to actually kinda... well, hate your stinking guts. Or even just dislike you. In most cases, just like a good old fashioned "plug nickel," they'll be more than happy to keep you around, just in case they happen, at some point down the line, to find an old fashioned slot machine that will readily accept you in trade.

Believe me, you'll be just fine down in someone's trusty back pocket, with all the more or less useless lint and spare petty change that can be discarded on a mere whim at any time of their random choosing. And that's just where many of us tend to sit. Until, or even if that is, someone in your social media circle should ever have need of you. And yes, it really is a sad way to look at social media "friendship," but that's just how most human relationships often really tend to be, whether you're a relative, a lifelong friend, etc., etc., etc., notwithstanding.

And then, sadly, it's even worse for those folks who don't even have that much going for them. They don't even have blood relatives who even like them enough to have anything at all do with them whatsoever in the first place. So when everybody else is getting together for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or being invited to a wedding... well, there's so much of a nasty feud brewing in the very bloodlines of the so-called "family," that some people just don't ever get invited to share that "fellowship" anyway. And worse yet, there are even some you're afraid to invite yourself!

And that is how some people end up on the street. Or in the gutter. On the side of the road. All the people all the rest of us lucky ones tend to have to try to ignore on our way to work. Or, even when we're out Christmas shopping, looking for pretty papers and pretty ribbons of blue. You know, for all those important people on that big, fancy, all consuming "social" list of names. And names. And names. And quite often, not very much else of any true and lasting substance.

But I guess that's just people for ya.

If no good deed goes unpunished

If it is true that, "No good deed goes unpunished," then surely, no good intention is left underappreciated, misunderstood, or outright rejected and scorned.

Choose your battles carefully

Choose your battles carefully, and your opponents even more so, for one never knows when a frequent foe might suddenly become the most powerful of allies; especially when confronted by a mutual enemy.

Ode to Facebook "Friendship"

Hey. It's me. You know, that guy. What's his name. That guy. That relative, that friend, acquaintance, former classmate, ex-coworker, yet another here-today-and-gone-tomorrow social media group member, or... maybe just another doting, sycophantic "Top Fan" Facebook page follower, etc, etc, etc.

Whatever the case may in fact be, if I "unfriended" you on Facebook recently (or even within the past several years or so), I'm terribly sorry, but I honestly didn't hear from you very often, so I guess I just gradually came to the conclusion that, for whatever reason, I simply wasn't significant enough to bother with most of the time. No big deal though. I mean, who really has time these days for all these electronic "friends" and connections anyway, right?

So, now that I'm down to just a handful of people left on my Facebook "friend" list, although some might say I've burned one too many bridges, I'm afraid I just don't see it that way at all. Because as far as I'm concerned, I didn't actually burn any bridges. I just finally stopped trying to cross most of them.

So I guess what I'm really saying is that unless I'm blocking you for whatever reason, I most likely still like or even love you. I'm just simply not walking even half way across that damn bridge anymore. Not for you anyway. Not anymore. I'm simply no longer going to even bother to waste even one more valuable minute of my time on such clearly fruitless endeavors. I mean, why should I?

So there you have it. So I no longer have a long list of so-called friends on fancy social media anymore, but then... I'm now pretty sure I never really had all that many genuine friends to begin with anyway. So is there really any love lost? I mean, really?

Whatever the case may in fact be, I'm sure that if you ever even do bother to remember little old me, should you happen to stop by my Timeline for a quick visit, you probably won't be here long, and probably not even long enough to scroll far enough down to see this particular message.

And even if you do, you probably won't even bother to read the whole thing. And that's okay, really. I wish you well. I sincerely, really, honestly do. God bless. Happy trails, adiós, adieu, arrivederci, ciao, sayonara, bon voyage, Auf Wiedersehen and... well, all that. Until we meet again. Or... did we ever? Really? Hmm. I guess we'll never really know for sure, will we?