Friends, friends everywhere

My high school friend (let’s call him John) posted a Facebook status last Wednesday that read, “I think most of our friends aren’t so much ‘friends’ as they are just ‘people who tend to occupy the same space.’” In a sort of wonderful act of modernity, he issued this thought to his 922 Facebook “friends” from a corner of my basement, the space he was occupying along with the 20 or so “friends” he was referencing in said status. For awhile, the lone comment on the post was from a “friend,” who simply wrote, “bold,” and probably agreed but didn’t want to explicitly say so for fear of offending his “friends.” There were also two “likes” from people whom John had almost certainly never thought of as “friends” and who apparently thought that the statement applied to a whole group of people he had never met. One could probably assume that they were free to “like” the status because their “friends” would never see it.

If you’re confused, don’t worry. So am I. But the point is that John’s status brought up a whole bunch of questions—intended and unintended—on what meaning our generation finds in the word “friends.” We all have those people who were once central figures in our lives but have since been relegated to the ranks of those we talk to once or twice a month and see once or twice a year. As we get deeper and deeper into college and become the individuals we will be for the rest of our lives, we often have less and less in common with these home friends. In fact, if it weren’t for Facebook, we might have already severed ties with many of these people.

And I suppose the question becomes: Is there anything inherently sad about the realization that your once-friends have become just “people who tend to occupy the same space”? Would we even still be occupying the same space if it weren’t for Facebook, and, if not, should we stop kidding ourselves and go our separate ways?

Part of me read John’s status and never wanted to see some of the people in my basement again. This was the same part of me that, after seeing “The Social Network,” had an overwhelming desire to delete my Facebook and never look back. It was the part of me that hates parties filled with strangers, that detests meeting new people alone, and that loathed most of NSOP week freshman year.

But there’s another part of me—the part that invited all those people to my basement last Wednesday (my basement being that “space” that those people tend to occupy most nights), the part of me that never does work on a Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, and the part that spends more time on Facebook than Jesus intended. This is the part of me that I like more and the part that I’m inclined to listen to in this particular argument.

Malcolm Gladwell writes in his essay “Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted” that “Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with” and that “our acquaintances—not our friends—are our greatest source of new ideas and information.”

In a lot of ways, what Gladwell says is true of old friends-turned-acquaintances as well. As far as diverse perspectives go, I can learn a lot more from a friend studying computer engineering at Virginia Tech than I can from my hallmate in Wien. But on a more basic level, occupying the same space with those people last Wednesday was fun. I may not have much in common with most of them anymore, and I may not even like some of them, but I’m pretty sure laughing about Ms. Gosen-Fowler’s junior year English class with a girl I haven’t spoken to in six months is a hell of a lot better than sitting alone in my basement.

Neil FitzPatrick is a Columbia College junior majoring in creative writing and East Asian languages and cultures. He is a former associate editorial page editor. Excuses and Half-Truths runs alternate Mondays.