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You Can’t Quit A Facebook Friendship
Who you once knew, you can now know forever
I quit Facebook a few months ago.
I still have other social media so quitting wasn’t really all that bold a move, but it is when you think about how it has potentially socially stranded me from people in a way that I’ve never before experienced, especially during the disconnection of a pandemic.
But the people I won’t “see” now, are likely people who I was very unlikely to see anyway, Covid or not. The widespread use of Facebook keeps people in my mental periphery who I would otherwise likely forget, as they would likely have forgotten me.
And I don’t mean forget, forget, like I wouldn’t know their name or face if I saw them somewhere. Just forget in the sense that they slipped your mind, because they were a very casual work acquaintance from a small restaurant that went out of business 20 years ago, where you each made $4 in tips a night, so you laughed together and bonded temporarily. Social media returns to you people who you liked, though you quickly lost track of. But now they popped up as a friend suggestion on Facebook, and you thought, “Oh I liked them, I should friend request them.” And for five minutes you skimmed their timeline and maybe exchanged a few messages and caught right up.
