We became limited access ‘friends’ back in those early Facebook days when you found people on the other side of the world with the same name and thought “what a fun novelty to be friends with someone I’ve never met who shares this essential characteristic with me”.
This other Charlene was tragically killed in a road accident – she had stopped to help someone who was broken down on the side of the road and was hit by a passing car. How do I know this? Her husband has kept her Facebook account not only open but active. He posts photos and messages on anniversaries, birthdays, holidays. On seeing a series of posts about how much she was missed I Googled her, and found the online tributes, the news stories, and stumbled upon this family’s loss. Whenever “she” posts a new photo, or a missing you message I have mixed feelings: it is touching, but heartbreaking, and on some level very discomfiting.
This morning I have been cleaning out my Friends list – paring back to people I have known, or at least met, or at least interacted with on FB enough to have some sense of who they are. When I got to her name I paused. I have left her there for over a year since she died, feeling it was like another small cruelty to unfriend her, and in so doing vicariously unfriend her still grieving husband and children. But why? How does having a stranger on the other side of the world seeing the outworking of a family’s grief in any way help them? Or help me?
It is such a curious thing this social media world. Since taking on the fun that is Twitter with both hands I have followed and interacted with people I wouldn’t know if I tripped over them on the street. Many of these tweeps live here in Canberra, many of them share my thoughts on politics, parenting and other issues I hold to be important. It is thrilling to see “such-and-such retweeted you”, “such-and-such followed you”, especially if whoever did so has more klout, or is on TV, or is simply someone whose on take on life is witty and/or resonant. It is equally sad to look at your follower count and see it has decreased. Facebook friends have a similar place in the heart. I think we’ve all had that moment, looking down the barrel of a friend request and considering whether or not to let this person into our virtual world. Their presence in reality is not something we can control, but their presence in our news feed certainly is. And the level to which we have to be faced with them – are they a friend or an acquaintance? Do we want to see their status, their likes, their photos? If we have a falling out, at what point to we cull them not only from our day-to-day actuality, but also from our digital interactions?
So I have unfriended this seemingly wonderful, beautiful, warm and kind human being. I did not know her, but I’m pretty sure we would have been friends, had there been but world enough and time.
And how I hope her husband doesn’t notice her friend tally has decreased by one.
