16 Jun Facedeath – The Inevitable Evolution of Facebook (not the Van Damme movie)

I’m the first to admit I don’t deal the best with death.  It’s not that I don’t feel comfortable acknowledging the final great riddle and I’m certainly not squeamish about being in the same room with a cadaver.   My anxiety derives from a concern that I’m not going to play appropriately with others.  I’m worried that I may say something stupid and hurtful.

Being a relatively thoughtful person I really want to avoid the potential of exchanges like the following.

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Hey yeah….. I know….  terribly sad…. … still…..kind of a win for the environment yeah?

Wow… I can see you’re upset… I’m so sorry… still you weren’t really very good friends with X were you… I mean they told me you’d pretty much ended all communication a year or so ago.

Oh it’s nice to see you too…. Yeah it’s been a while….. I know, so tragic X took their own life, if only they had reached out….. totally.   Still….. I guess, gotta give them points for not fucking it up yeah?

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I’m sure other people (well I hope other people) sometimes think these thoughts.  My problem is that I have such little else to say, these musings are usually at the front of my ‘conversational topic’ mind buffet and sometimes it’s best to skip a meal.

Sadly, over the last few years I’ve lost a few friends.  Not ‘chat every week’ friends but people that have passed the test of a decade or so and still mean enough to me that they’ve survived the odd Facebook cull.  I’d say “Happy Birthday” on the appropriate day, they’d comment on a cute photo of me as a child nose to nose with a large bull.  We may have even got together a few times a year to share a hug and meal.

But, selfishly they left this mortal plane and I have a new conundrum to cause me mild anxiety.

Once you’re dead, can I delete you from my Facebook friends? 

Or is this perceived lack of sentimentality and uber extreme efficiency going to be considered ruthless and horrible by those Facebook friends still drawing breath?  Surely it’s better than accidentally inviting you to our annual “Bad Friday” Easter House Party or wishing you Happy Birthday?  God forbid I poke a dead friend accidentally. :/

Firstly I’ve got to say, my friends live forever in my increasingly sketchy memory and each of them are reflected in the smile lines etched on my face.  I love them all dearly and will grieve for each until it’s my turn to go.

BUT…. I probably won’t post a goodbye on their Facebook page, nor will I use their wall like a one way walkie-talkie to heaven.   It’s not that I don’t recognise it’s a nice way for friends to share memories, it’s more a deep seated fear of what this behaviour may eventually lead to.

Cue: Strange time travel music and wavy flash forward effects.

40 Years Into the Future  (I’m hoping my 20’s won’t bite me on the ass here I know)

There I am sitting down with Face-insta-book (which incidentally is also the world’s dominant military power) and I’ve got a grand total of 10 friends that I can poke and expect a response from and 367 memorial pages that I’m unable to keep track of.  My final years are left watching an ever diminishing poke pool and getting birthday reminders for friends who have been dead for decades.

It’s enough to make you switch to Twitter.