Friends, Followers and Figures

After running out of useful ways of spending time one day this week, I happened to open my Facebook Timeline and noticed that the number of Friends had dropped by one.

I still have a little self-respect, so I’m not going to tell you how many FB friends I have, other than it’s a lot more than Twitter followers (still have found relatively little use for that). In any case, though there’s no good reason for it, I’m consumed with curiosity as to why the number of Friends went down.

There are a few possibilities. It could be some kind of Facebook glitch, though that is, of course, highly unlikely. Or, it may be that somebody pulled the plug on Facebook, especially if they live in a dicey foreign country. But it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that someone pulled the plug on ME – I’ve been “unfriended.”

So now, questions arise: Was it something I said? Did I zig politically when I should have zagged, or pan the wrong movie, or hit the “Like” button for some tragic story? Was it my spelling or English usage? Did someone take me literally when I was trying to be cleverly sarcastic?

I may, of course, be able to figure out the answer if I determine who left, but the plug-puller doesn’t have to disclose that. I don’t have a lot of FB friends – I don’t collect them – but there are enough so that it would be a fairly difficult task to go through and dope out who was there once, and isn’t now.

But I have to draw the line somewhere. There are enough figures to keep track of in life – cholesterol count, blood pressure, BMI, fat percentage in meat – and even my age. And that’s a number that’s going up soon – meaning I should be a little more careful about what I spend an ever-diminishing amount of time worrying about.