6 Degrees of Facebook

I have 35 friends.

I know this because I'm on Facebook.

And everyone knows that a Facebook friend is a real, true friend.

Currently I have two people requesting to be my friend - one is someone that I don't really want to be friends with (and hopefully she doesn't have the link to this blog!) and the other is...someone...and that's all I know. I checked her profile picture and she doesn't look familiar. Although those 1" x 1" profile pics don't show a lot of detail. I am pretty sure she is indeed a she. Come to think of it, the name is kind of gender neutral. I checked her on-line photo albums where the photos are much bigger and she has lovely pictures of a recent trip to Rome to see the Pope - not really something most of my friends are doing these days. Aha...a clue! She has signed onto my high school class of ?? (don't want to date myself too badly!) so surely I must know her as we were a class of about 200 and I seriously think that back in the day (you know the day I mean - before having kids fried my memory cells) I could put a name to every face. So putting on my super sleuthing Sherlock Holmes double billed hat, I do what every good modern day detective does - I ask my other Facebook Friends from the Class of ?? if they know who this Pope-visiting friend is. Neither of them have a clue, although one, in the quest to grow her friends list, has accepted her friendship.

That - the ever growing friends list - is a major competition. I think Facebook may be one of these "He who has the most friends wins" type of deals. Seriously, do you have 742 friends? I think the powers that be at Facebook should give serious consideration to renaming the "Friends" portion of the site. Perhaps "Casual Acquaintances" or "People I stalk from afar" or maybe even "People my cousin in Toronto knows" would be better names for this list.


Facebook, AKA Crackbook for its addictive nature, is a ton of fun though. I've connected with friends from elementary, junior and high school, university, previous jobs, shared hobbies, etc. What is really strange is the whole "6 degrees of separation" thing. I've found friends on other friends' friends' friends lists (confusing you yet? Could be my total lack of understanding of how to use an apostrophe in the plural possessive!) OK, with or without the apostrophe issue it is still confusing. I'll try to clear that up with a Wikipedia explanation - six degrees of separation refers to the idea that, if a person is one "step" away from each person he or she knows and two "steps" away from each person who is known by one of the people he or she knows, then everyone is no more than six "steps" away from each person on Earth. Clear as mud, right? Do you suppose Kevin Bacon is the creator of Facebook?


While I really enjoy searching out and being found by old friends (and mystery people) I pretty much curb my Facebooking ( a new word??) to a couple of special interest groups (like the Class of ??) but some of my other friends are tossing drinks, throwing books, growing gardens and poking each other - virtually, of course. I really draw the line at your pet wanting to be friends with my pet. First off, Cocoa's paws are too big for the keyboard and she gets really ticked when her messages come out all scrambled and secondly, I'm already sharing the computer with 2 Webkins-loving kids so I'm not letting a dog cut into my computer time too!