Unfriendship

They love us even when we act like idiots. They miss elimination night of “So You Think You Can Dance” to stay on the phone with us until our problems are resolved. When a pair of jeans make our rear ends look a little bit too bootylicious, they let us know.
 
These are real friends. And removing them from our circles is nearly impossible.
Besides, who would want to end a real friendship? It’s the fake friendships we’d love to get rid of – and in recent years, some of the cyber friendships. 

“Unfriend” is the New Oxford American Dictionary’s word of the year for 2009. They chose this word because it has become prevalent in our society and has far-reaching and long-lasting significance.

This year, the most significant words were the ones related to social networking. Since social networking sites have gone mainstream, a whole new category of words has been added to our society’s lexicon.

When “unfriend” was announced as the word of the year, I started to remember all of the times I “unfriended” someone on a social networking site.

I’m sure there were times when I decided that a person was no longer worthy of my Facebook friendship. Perhaps they were creeping me out with strange comments. Maybe I realized I didn’t actually know them in real life so it was silly – not to mention dangerous – to have a solely virtual friendship. So I clicked the “Remove from Friends”  option at the bottom of their page. The friendship was over within milliseconds.  

My real-life friends are a bit more difficult to “unfriend.”

One of the best parts about coming home during breaks is the time I get to spend with my friends from high school.

We rarely get to see each other anymore since we are scattered across the country in pursuit of higher education. (I would argue that some of my friends scattered in pursuit of a warmer climate – but who am I to judge?) 

When we get together it’s as if nothing changed. We might be completely different people than we were in high school, but our friendships are the way we left them. We talk about our lives at college, our relationships and our plans for the future. Among these is a very important plan. The plan to be friends forever.

I’ve witnessed a lot of people “unfriending” their high school friends once they get to college. They figure there is no point holding on to a friendship that is so difficult to maintain.

I couldn’t agree less. I have some friends who might as well be in the Zimbabwe network on Facebook and I am in constant communication with them. We are always either instant messaging, Blackberry messaging, text messaging, video chatting or writing on each other’s walls. Sometimes we even talk on the phone. I can’t get rid of them – and I don’t want to.

Maybe 2009 was the year when “unfriending” was hip.  Let’s try to make 2010 a year of “friending,” “refriending” and holding on to friendships.