in Non Fiction, Writing 785 Words

Over 1000 Facebook Friends; Really!

I know what you’re thinking. Most likely, what this guy is not afraid to say:

Picture from: Creatememe

Your skeptical mind is saying, ‘1000 friends? Really?’

And five years ago, I would be standing where you are, saying that exact same thing! But, today, I stand on the other side of the boundary line. The lonely side, which I crossed into a while ago- the land of. . . Over Thousand Facebook Friends or to put it in short (OTFF)!

I don’t know how I got here. No, wait, I do. It is by clicking on the ‘Accept Request’ button on Facebook. (Droll, you say.)

OTFF, for me, has been a strange new domain. Every day, I sit down to cull my Friend list down to a reasonable number, such as, 923, but it doesn’t happen! As always, I make the cardinal mistake of starting with my friends alphabetically. By the time I reach ‘B’, my eyes are watering from the effort of scrolling through 200 names. (Why do SO MANY PEOPLE have names starting with ‘A’?)

How did  I make all these friends? What a ridiculous question! By my winsome and fabulous personality, of course! I mean, five minutes with me in an FB chat and you realise that here is a soul you are destined to be friends with forever. All people know this instinctively. I think it is some unique ‘Friend fragrance’ that I emit through the virtual screens of this Web-connected world.

Facebook started off as a vaguely sticky connection tool to get back in touch with people you lost contact with over the years. Long-lost classmates, ex-colleagues from work, that distant relative on your mother’s side who saw you when you were four months old and who always exclaims ,’ How you’ve grown’, when you meet them at a family event once in twenty years: These are the people that can and do get in touch with you. Now, too late, you realise that you lost touch with some people for a reason- Karma. But Facebook does not believe in the Karmic principle. It goes out of its way to dredge up memories and souls from the past and present them to you in a sidebar, with the notice, ‘You may know these people’.

So, the most logical thing follows.

You click on a Suggested Friend.

You check for ‘Mutual friends’.

You realise you have half a friend in common.

You jump in joy.

And the inevitable happens.

Click ‘Accept’, of course. Not doing so would be WRONG! You could go to Eternal Damnation and rot forever in Purgatory, if you decline or, worse, block the person.

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Of course, being in the Blogging space does put you at a slight disadvantage when it comes to declining friend requests. You visit a blogger periodically, comment on their posts and truly enjoy their writing. So, it’s only natural that they would want to be close friends with you and share every other intimate secret of their lives via a social network. I mean, the logic is mind-boggling in its simplicity!

So, the only thing you can do is totally annoy people in some way that they Un-friend you  (God, I HATE that word!). Yes! Put the onus of the deletion on them! That will show them 😉

Tips that SHOULD work for this include:

  1. Post a status update everyday. Every three hours would be even better.
  2. Share a video of kids or animals or kids with animals. Again, once every two days should do the trick.
  3. Share a picture of an unclean coffee mug (Honestly, someone DID do this and I removed them in a hurry. I mean, unclean coffee mug today, waxed hair in the sink tomorrow, you never can tell!)
  4. Tell people that they are wrong. On their status. Do it rudely.
  5. Share a post that says ‘ Hit ‘Like’ and see what happens’.

After all this, if you still have over 1000 Facebook friends, then I am sorry to say that it’s your own fault. You must just be too nice or so scary that people fear the Hammer of Thor will wipe them out if they dare to un-friend you.

For the record, I love ALL my 1007 Facebook friends because they add up to the number ‘8’. Yes, I am whimsical that way.

As for those of you who have less than a hundred friends, I have one question for you:

Why are you on Facebook? Get over to My Space right away!

*Disclaimer: Since the world does have a way of misinterpreting things, I hereby declare that this post was written in jest. It reeks of sarcasm and is not aimed at anyone in particular. 

48 thoughts on “Over 1000 Facebook Friends; Really!”

  2. Pingback: 12 Dominant ways that Facebook Affects me as a parent and blogger

  3. Hi Janice! I use the Easy Social Share Plugin and it updates the share count for all the buttons automatically, including Flipboard. It’s the paid version of the plugin. I believe the same can be achieved with Social Warfare too. Not sure if it is available on free plugins though. Hope this helps 🙂

    Shailaja

  4. Hi Shailaja,
    Can you PLEASE tell me how to get a share count on a Flipboard button? I’d be grateful. I even wrote the Flipboard people but never got a response. I didn’t think they knew, but I heard it was possible.
    Janice

  5. Hi! I agree with you on the OTFF category and I’m in the space as well. The problem is I find the pruning exercise so cumbersome that I let it be as it is. In any case, nowadays, FB is quite boring and I’m quite happy to maintain my policy of not logging into FB on a daily basis. There was a time two years ago when I could spend an entire day on FB not anymore. How I love the way our priorities change with time!

  6. Oh I have a better idea – link your Twitter and FB. Tweet all the time – about cats and dogs and whatnot. The only “friends” that’ll remain are the ones who check their FB once a month or something 😛
    But, really, A? I thought too many people had names starting with S. A is a close second though.

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  10. I have over 4000 friends on Facebook and I’ve had coffee with each and every one of them. Go ahead and friend me, I’ll accept your request. I agree about being a blogger, especially in the early days of Facebook, helps to increase your friend count. Also managing all of your clients’ social media accounts helps to (in other words I spend all day on Facebook).

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  14. Just 401 friends, I am not friendly enough!! will be more open now! Thanks for the tip O’ great one!!
    Just imagine, i actually delete friend requests from people who are friends of friends, friend!!
    Hilarious post !

  28. I honestly have that many friends- relatives, bloggers, extended family, my ex-colleagues, my classmates, my students. I actually know all of them. Obviously, among the bloggers, some are closer than others. And not all 1000 people read my updates or share on my timeline, but, yes, I am lucky. Thanks Bikram 🙂

  35. Too funny! I just recently purged my friends list of a bunch of people who NEVER interact with me, and the feeling of freedom was incredible. I’m at 202 right now, and was actually a bit disappointed that I couldn’t bring it down below 200! 😉

  36. I liked the post and then loved it after reading the disclaimer 😉 Been a while since I read something like this from you Shailaja 🙂

  37. “Post a status update everyday” doesn’t seem to work…or may be it does and that’s why I only have 877 friends 😀 but it is not a decrease, but an increase in number 🙂

  42. There was a time when I told myself I would never allow my Friends list on FB go beyond 150. And I managed to keep it under that for several years. Now it is 350+. Time to do some pruning, I think 🙂 Especially after reading this post. Thanks for those fun tips, Shailaja, but I think I will simply use the simplest “un-friend” tool 🙂 Yes I can be cruel if I have to.
    You should write some humorous stories, you will be very good at those 🙂

  43. I understand the OTFF dilemma! Though I’m far from that #, I had only wanted no more than about 50 FF and now I have more than 250! 😉 I initially connected specifically to connect with one person in particular from high school and a friend from years ago and I guess it kinda snowballs from there! 😉 Of course though Shailaja, your winning smile and personality has us reeled in hook, line, and sinker! 😉 (Didn’t I tell you the other day that we wouldn’t like you, we would LOVE you!) 😉 Congrats by the way if you prefer! 😉 <3

  44. Well I am old fashioned I don’t believe one can have so many Friends. . True friends .. acquaintances maybe more than 10000 but friends can be a few only those who stand with you in good and bad times and that too physically. .

    but lucky are those who have so many and you surly are lucky.. I am not even on Facebook ..

    You are a good person hence everyone wants to be friends with you..

  45. OMG Shailaja I am literally rolling on the floor laughing right now. And I mean that “literally” :D. Wait! Let me go check my number of FB friends before I laugh some more.

  46. haha….I loved your post, Shailaja! I, too, met some really wonderful friends through FB. I joined FB to search my old college friends. I met just one of them, but met a lot of friends from school. Also made some awesome friends because of blogging, one of them being this blogger whose post I am commenting on! 🙂 You truly emit some special fragrance that draws people towards you and that is the reason you have so many friends today! I have around 240 or so (maybe I reek of HIT that keeps people away! ). I believe in making friends with whom I can chat on FB. If I can’t chat, then I don’t accept their requests, simple! And, also very cruel, is it? 🙂

  47. hehe I loved those tips you gave about making people unfriend you. I have about 300 friends, as I take my pruning exercises very seriously. I have started holding back a lot on FB including cutting down sharing pics. I only comment openly on a few people’s statuses who I know are open minded (whatever that means) :). Finally, I have cut down on my FB time. It really helps. What is confounding is that most of my ‘real’ friends are either not there on FB or hardly do something on it.

  48. You are in the OTFF category? Wow! I’d have never guessed. 😛 Well, you are the B-A-R tender after all 🙂 Okay, PJ’s aside. I think MySpace is dead. I just took a quick look at my friends list and it says 602 – yay! rounds up to 8. Surely I must get brownie points for that, in your book 😛
    Before I diss Facebook and its ‘friend-ing’ policy, I must also quickly add, some of the best people I’ve met and come to befriend has been through FB. So yes, you have them all. You know where you stand 😀

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