So there's this show called Catfish, based on the movie by the same name, that highlights stupid people who fall in love over the Internet without ever meeting the love of their life in person or in most cases, even seeing them. I don't feel sorry for people who get "catfished". If you do stupid things, you deserve a broken heart. DON'T DATE SOMEONE ONLINE. MEET THEM IN PERSON. Duh.
But that's not what this rant is about. In the show, the hosts often turn to the suspect's Facebook page to determine if it's a fake or not. One of the ways they do this is by counting how many Facebook friends they have. If they don't have friends numbering in the hundreds, they consider the profile fake. Well, that's stupid.
First, not everyone on Facebook is going to have hundreds of strangers friended. A lot of people just use Facebook to stay in touch with family. It doesn't mean they aren't real people or that they're running a fake sight. Your logic is flawed if you think that. Most people don't know hundreds of people personally. The ones who claim to are the liars. Therefore, anyone with more than a hundred friends on Facebook are the ones to look out for.
But to another issue that pissed me off. People, we need to learn the difference between FRIEND and ACQUAINTANCE. Facebook may call them friends, but that's just because acquaintance was too long a word for them. Just because you friend someone on Facebook, it doesn't mean they're really your friend.
I prefer the Twitter terminology. You don't have friends on Twitter. You have people who follow your profile. Guess what. The same goes for Facebook.
A friend is someone who will come pick you up at 3am if your car breaks down. A friend is someone who's been to your house so often they know their way around your kitchen. A friend is someone you can fart in front of and not be embarrassed. A friend is someone you trust watching your kids.
If you can't do any of that with your Facebook friends, then they're not real friends. They are acquaintances. They are people you know casually but that is where the familiarity ends. They are people who follow your profile and nothing more.
Would you know your Facebook friends birthdays without Facebook reminding you? You would if they were a real friend. You know your friends favorite foods, colors, what books they enjoyed as children and most importantly, you DON'T forget. Because you're their friend. With an acquaintance, you only know what they post. An acquaintance is someone you just share cat memes with. A friend is someone you share a bond with.
And don't tell me it's ok if you've met them once and liked the conversation. That's not how friendship works.
Friendship takes time to cultivate. It takes effort to maintain. You don't instantly become friends at first sight. There is no love at first sight either. There's an interest at first sight followed by months and sometimes years of getting to know eachother before taking the step beyond acquaintance to a real friendship.
Truth: You have no friends on Facebook. Ok, you may have one or two, but outside that small circle, anyone you have a strictly online relationship with or who you've only ever met a handful of times, is NOT your friend. They are merely an acquaintance.
Catfish is stupid and so are people who mistake a friend request from a stranger for a friendship.
