To my "friends".

10.18.06
5:10 PM
I took a short nap today and it was fucking awesome.
I went to work at 4:30 today and when I stepped outside to head over, I noticed that the weather was perfect. No, wait…Perfect. Yes, Perfect, with a capital “P”.
It was so Perfect that it brought back every memory of every Perfect day I have ever had in my life, climatically speaking.
Days in Central Park mostly, although a few in Florida popped up as well.
I smiled a six year old’s smile and dug it. Dug it xmax.
On a less Perfect note: myspace.
I have several friends. Some friends I consider closer than others. Some people started off as friends of friends and then became friends. I don’t need to explain this.
People I see on a regular basis I usually consider close friends, although there are some friends I see once or twice every few months, and yet they are closer than these friends I see on a weekly or even bi-weekly basis. Then there are the acquaintances. I consider these people the friends of my friends that I never became friends with. Are you still following my gravy train (avec biscuit wheels) of thought? There are people I hung out with who hung out with other people. It’s these other people I am talking about. I don’t hate these people, or even strongly dislike them for that matter, but I certainly don’t consider them my friends and in some cases, I don’t really know them very well at all. They are friends of my friends who never became anything more or less.
Now, in the case of NEW friends of my friends, there is still a very real possibility they might become my friends if my friends and their friends and I continue to hang out together, but in the case of the friends of my friends in college, for instance? That ship has pretty much sailed. You had four years to get to know me, to befriend me, if you will.
Now, I’m sure the smarter among you can see where this is going, but for the friends of my friends’ friends, let me break it down:
As it relates to myspace, I now have these aforementioned “other people” sending me highly coveted and seldom awarded “friend requests”.
I was just then being facetious.
I wonder if there was ever a moment, even the briefest shimmer of an instant when this meant something, ANYTHING to anyone before it became as unimportant and banal as deleting dick enlargement spam from your inbox.
I wonder if anyone out there over the age of twelve really believes that when someone sends you a “friend request” that they care about you as much as friends are supposed to.
I wonder of anyone still (or ever) gives a second thought before sending out dozens of these nonexistent, meaningless “friend requests” a day.
Don’t misunderstand, if I was someone’s acquaintance in school or at some other point in my life, sure, send me a “friend request”, but if you were a friend of my friend who knew my thought them and didn’t really hang out with me unless they were around because in reality you didn’t really like meat all, why the fuck would you send me a “friend request”? So that all the names on your friends’ “friend list” match up with yours?
Fuck that.
You don’t want to be my friend. You could have done that easily back when we were hanging out with the same people for the better part of four years (college) or six years (high school). You want the poor, bored bastards who trawl the Internet at three o’clock in the morning waiting for their Hentai to download so they can bust their greasy nut and go to sleep to see your “friend list” and fucking balk. You want them to say, “437 friends?! I don’t even KNOW that many people!” Chances are that you don’t either though.
You don’t know them, but they’re your “friends”. They leave comments and messages and blogs and they all know you and love you.
You’ve certainly met them all face to face and had long-lasting, meaningful relationships with them.
You’ve read all their journal entries, you share all their interests and you know everything there is to know about them.
In fact, you probably know them so well that you don’t even NEED to see them face to face or even talk to them on the phone! You know them so well that you can just click and clack on your keyboard and that relationship just gets stronger and more meaningful with each and every click of the mouse.
Hey, you profile picture and the song you have on your page say it all. We were meant for each other.
I fucking loathe what things like myspace have done to human relations. Myspace has actually managed to make the word “friend” mean less. That is fucking amazing.
Sure, you can now hang out with people you didn’t hang out with in high school, but what the fuck for? If you really wanted to see someone, you’d see them. If you really wanted to talk to them, you’d call them. You wouldn’t have to Google their goddamn user ID and cross reference it with their AOL screen name. And DO NOT mumble any weak shit about how it takes so much time and effort to keep in touch with people when your spending HOURS of your life pimping out your fucking blog.
Myspace has made it even easier to not give a shit about people.
Just “click”, now you’re my friend and I don’t have to do anything else.
It’s depressing, but then again, it’s where we’re headed.
I can bitch and bitch and post my angry little entries right here on myspace AND the underappreciated and Amish-by-comparison LiveJournal and the best part is that no one will ever read it.
Why would you? You’ve got more “friend requests”, e-cards, e-vites and video posts to make.
Well, prove me wrong “friends”. All you people on whose periphery I was when you knew me as a flesh and blood person and not as a picture, screen name and headline, read this and tell me why I’m your friend. Why the fuck do you want a whiny, hypocritical, Luddite, spastic ganglo-freak as your friend? Is it because you’re trying to rival that unspeakable techno-twat Tila Tequila? (If that is the case, by the way, kill yourself) How about I just assume so until you prove me wrong.
If you prove me wrong, excellent, I will hopefully find in you a new friend and our surface relationship that we’ve had thus far can deepen into something that means something.
If not? Fuck it. It isn’t like I’ve seen you in years, ever see you now or plan to see you ever again. You’re not even going to read this because it’s more than a paragraph, you lazy anus.
True friendship matters to me.
A true friend is more valuable than anything in this world.