Defaced

Remember late 20th century? A time when life was simple and could be lived anonymously in the big city. The heady days when Friends Reunited was seen as cutting edge, and stalking was something men in rain coats did outside your bedroom window?

In the past week the Hairy Farmer Family have been outed thanks to twitter's handy 'find all those within a 1 mile radius' function, and Murgdan is experiencing a facebook funk. It really is the era of too much information. Curtain twitching has been replaced by facebook poking.

To date my social networking profile had been hard to find by acquaintances who knew me pre-2006, largely thanks to the ubiquitous surname my husband bestowed upon me and my enigmatic profile picture. However the honeymoon period couldn't last. Through the friend of a friend function I was discovered.

I received a friend request from a girl I had not spoken to since I was 18. A girl I was friendly enough with at school but I have no desire to rekindle the relationship. I have five very close friends from school, those I am not in contact with we lost touch for a reason.

Facebook etiquette should surely dictate that if a friend request is ignored then leave it, get the message. But no, not this girl. A few weeks ago the request was reiterated. Once again I did not respond. And then I get the following message:

Subject: It's meeeeeeeeeeee!

"Please accept my friendship request. It's me Kate from [school]!"

Yes, she virtually squealed “meeee”, like it was exciting.

My response:

"Look love, you have a picture on your profile and, despite the fact that half of your face is obscured by your one year old daughter, I recognised you.

I appreciate I may have in some way encouraged this request as a result of my well-publicised need for personal grooming of the retro-muff pre-Doctors appointments, however, I am adequately furnished with beauticians who will do that for me in London. I am unlikely to become a client of your beauticians practice in rural Wales. In fact I have very little inclination to visit Wales ever again after my last sojourn for your 18th birthday party was excruciating. Remember how you spent the whole night in tears because one of the boys that you invited was kissing someone else, whilst I had to try to cheer up a male friend of mine (with whom you had previously had intimate relations with) who had made the five hour journey to your party believing he was on a promise?

I see no particular way in which us becoming virtual friend with have any positive affect on either of our lives. From what I gather from my remaining friends from school who have succumbed to your entreaties for friendship your updates range from the banal to the illiterate. I have no desire to hear about your family life, your daughter’s first steps or the next pregnancy that will no doubt coming very soon.

We had little enough in common at school when we saw each other on a daily basis, our friendship blossoming out of proximity rather than anything deeper. What little information I can deduce about your life in the intervening 14 years we now have even less in common than ever. You are scared of dogs, for fuck’s sake!

I admit I was curious to see who your other facebook 'friends' were and was stunned to see how many of them were also at school with us, girls that didn't even talk to you back in the day. I was also amazed at the number who clearly cannot conceive of a photo without them proudly displaying their offspring.

Whereas I simply cannot conceive.

Whilst these photos are a good indication that my inability to produce is not as a result of the radioactive school food we were forced to shovel down our throats during our teenage years, they are not the sort of thing that I care to be reminded of on a daily basis. In fact scrolling through your friends list and seeing all the babies made me quite tearful and incredibly conscious of the gaping hole in my life. I think that might account for the harsher than normal tone of this missive.

I would sign off with a friendly ‘see you’ only I know I won’t be seeing you in any way soon. So Goodbye."

Only, of course, I didn’t send that. Instead I emailed all my 'real' friends who are also facebook friends reminding them of my email address and I deactivated my account.

(Which means I also don’t have to agonised over whether I should accept friendship requests from my mate’s brother in law, a guy at work who I only ever say ‘hi’ to in the corridor but have never had a conversation with and my mate’s ex-girlfriend).

If I carry on at this rate it will all be telephonic devises and postage stamps.

Oh, and blogs, that’s different.