Facebook causes flashback, rejection difficult to handle

When I was a little girl, many, many moons ago in a galaxy far away, I wanted to be invited to Kim Macy’s slumber party. Don’t worry; names have been changed to protect the guilty.

She was so cool and pretty and wore a rabbit fur coat. Please, no letters from PETA supporters, it was just the fad back then.We didn’t know any better. If you don’t believe me, look at our hair styles.

Anyway, if you can hear the sad violins in the background, I’ll continue. Basically what happened was this:  every girl in the class was pretty much invited, except me.

Ouch. Well, my mother, feeling outraged on my behalf, said I could have a slumber party and invited every girl in the class if I wanted to, so I did. Thirteen girls showed up and made for the longest night of my mom’s life.

I don’t remember much except a lot of Wham! music and an incident around 4 a.m. where my mom told us that the police had showed up and asked us to keep the noise down.

Later I found out that was a lie, and I was way more bummed out that that wasn’t true then the fact that I didn’t go to Kim Macy’s slumber party. That wasn’t the first, or last, time I’ve been snubbed.

Anyway, I tell you all of this, not to give you insight into my psyche or anything, trust me nobody wants to go there, but to discuss the special elite social slumber party called Facebook.

Here’s what I want to know: have you ever been cybersnubbed? Or, in other words, friended, then unfriended?

I was so excited when I first started getting friends on Facebook. I found some old high school buddies and even some long lost relatives and sent them friend requests.

Pretty soon I started getting a pretty good friend base. Then, I was unfriended. Ok, I know that it’s not the same as in fourth grade when I wasn’t invited to the slumber party. Except wait ... it sort of is.

For the two people who haven’t heard about this, here’s what I’m talking about:  you add a friend on Facebook, get used to seeing them on your friend’s list, then all of a sudden, they just aren’t.

I myself have unfriended a few people, but only because some people can’t handle the freedom of the press. Meaning, given an open forum, they don’t know where the line between “I’m being honest here” and “Wow, I’m a total jerk and have no filter” is drawn. That’s another column.

As you might have guessed, I’m way too introspective, so when I see I’ve been unfriended, I mope around and wonder ... why?
It is because I didn’t say hi to you in the hallway after Brit Lit?

Is it because you believe my last column was lame? If so, you can e-mail me and tell me. Not that I’ll do anything, but ... I think my all-time most embarrassing unfriending moment was when I realized I was unfriended by my old pastor back in Arkansas. How many people can say that?  It was something about clashing political views, I believe.

That’s sad, and a bit pathetic. So here’s my promise to you: if you are my friend on Facebook, I’ll not unfriend you.

Well, let me give you this short disclaimer.  I’ll not unfriend you, unless you:
1. Write a rant about a bad humor columns, posting a link to mine for an example.
2. Post a picture of my house as a possible candidate for the “Clean Sweep” show.
3. Tag me in a particularly unflattering pictures where I resemble Rosanne Conner in the all-you-can-eat Cheetos days. 
4. Send me a message where you use a lot of four-letter words in my description.  Except, if I believe it’s really creative use of the English language, in which case I’ll just admire your use of slang.

Otherwise, I’ll be your FFL unless you never accept my friend request in the first place. Incidentally, is there a reason why you didn’t accept my friend request?