He Who Dies with the Most Friends Wins

Posted: Wednesday, April 14, 2010 by Greg in
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BLOG SWAP!!!

The following entry is part of 20SB's blog swap. I was partnered up with Annie Kee from Boston, MA. 20SB obviously did this because us Boston kids are fucking awesome, and should only be allowed to interact with one another. Check out her blog here, she was dope enough to feature me as well.

So, I suffer from an inherent self-deprecation that sometimes makes making friends kind of hard.

Or keeping friends.

Or even understanding that I have friends.

Let me give you an example.

When I went to London, during the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college, a TOTALLY FAMOUS classmate of mine, Julia, also came. She was a year ahead of me and had been in EVERY play I saw at Berkeley.

She was gorgeous, talented, and HILARIOUS. And I was awe-struck.

We had a total blast with the group in London, although she had a roommate that she became very close with and I just assumed we weren’t as close as I thought we were. She spent a lot of time with some of the other TOTALLY FAMOUS people from the department, and I always thought it was because she just had to be a part of the theatre department glitterati.

When we returned to the States and I realized she was my next door neighbor, my negative assumptions continued. She spent time with the “beautiful people,” and I was just the girl in charge of the shoestring student theatre company that performed in a choral rehearsal hall.

Anyway, it took me months to realize we were actually friends because I was so busy being enamored of her.

Not cool.

(Now, she’s actually TOTALLY FAMOUS, doing lots of theatre work in LA. Go, Julia!)

Frankly, Facebook has exacerbated this problem.

I have a strict (stupid) policy about not friending people from my past lives.

It’s like, they understand that we have mutual friends, so they should friend me. If they don’t want to friend me, well, then I don’t want to be Facebook friends with them either!

When did I become a 7-year-old?

Anyway, in lieu of friending them, I do the Facebook stalk.

I am morbidly curious about what old school and camp friends are up to.

Because, of course, it’s got to be infinitely more exciting and significant than what I’m doing.

I like to look up the ones that always seemed much cooler than me. The ones I literally haven’t seen in 13 years.

I pore over pictures, check out relationship statuses, try to match these young men and women’s fit bodies (they’re all so fit!) and grown-up faces (when did we get old?) with the awkward 14-year-olds I once knew.

I envy most the ones who are still totally friends with each other.

The girls I went to summer camp and high school with, for instance, were all in each other weddings. Their Facebook pictures have captions like “Friends since the 2nd grade” and “Friends forever.”

They get together on weekends and sit in the park with boys and dogs. They travel to places like Colorado, to go on ski trips, and Vegas, to dance and gamble.



I have a lot of past lives, so this Facebook stalking takes up a lot of time.

It’s amazing I get anything done these days.

2 comments:

  1. I kinda have a similar policy. I really hate it when people try to add me just because we were in each other's kindergarten class or something.

    Or the worst, when people you know add you, but you know they're never going to talk to you and never interested in being friends in real life, but then they suddenly start messaging you on your wall with comments like 'Oh my gosh! I haven't seen you in forever! We should really get together!! xox!'

  1. I agree with you and Tabitha, I try not to send any friend requests at all (not even to current friends, lol), I somehow love being asked to be their friends, I guess I also want to avoid myself the rejection (like when you add a friend you had an argument with a long time ago and you never knew from the other again).
    I am a FB stalker too, as much as I try...I can't help it...it's very hurtful though...I get to see from others' pictures what I wish I would be doing...totally masochistic...