to think Facebook has devalued what it means to be a "friend"?

[VictoriaMeldrew]

I've recently got going on there, and it's fun. But - call me naive - I am disbelieving/aghast/perplexed to find that some people apparently have hundreds of "friends".

Am I being thick, or is that just not possible? I feel I have enough friends, and I love them and value them dearly, and I struggle to keep in touch with them all as much as I'd like - and they don't reach close to 100.

So I don't get it. Should Facebook instead list "people I've ever known" or "contacts"? Then I could understand us all having hundreds of folks on there. I suppose I could ask more people from my past to "be my friend", but to be honest, I'd feel a fraud, as they're not really friends, IYSWIM.

Argh, it's late. Maybe I'm not making sense, or being a pedant, or both! I've just been mulling this over the past few days, and thought I'd put it to the Mumsnet jury.

Yeah maybe there should be an add as an aquaintence option.

I don't think it matters one iota what name they go by. Contacts, Friends, Romans, Countrymen - tis all the same to me. I know who my real friends are, and having acquaintance/contacts/random MNers listed along with them doesn't change that.

It's all just semantics. And it's way too late in the evening for those!

Im thinking of deleting my page, I can't be bothered to maintain the old friends I lost touch with you know?

Someone I know added an application that allowed you to choose 'Best Friends,' but I think they know about it when you select them.

I do agree, there seems to have developed an element of competition in getting the highest number possible and it's not a good thing at all.

Well, of course it can't have that. It has to have one blanket term for everyone, or else there'd be offended people all over the show. So I was thinking "contacts". Maybe I'm a bit of a softie, but I think of a friend as someone really special; having hundreds of 'em would seem to dilute their value.

LOL though at the thought of a Facebook hierarchy-of-friends. Crikey.

BTW, that post was in response to ledodgy's. The others appeared while I was typing.

Fair point, shitehawk.

yabu
my ds added me as a fb freind.
I can even ask him and my newphew/nieces/sil when their birthdays are!!
it is just a term. I call them fb freinds, and mners are my cyber freinds.

YABU

I have got two pages one for my Friends and one for people that I know also that I knew back in the day.

TBH if it wasn't for facebook I wouldnt of been able to contact my cousin in America to let him know his brother is in intensive care and may not live.

Fb is an exercise is gathering as many people as you know/knew. its got little to do with friends.

i had a girl try to add me as a friend becuase she was certain i used to hand around the park with her when i was 15.

i wasn't/didn't

YABU - thanks to FB I'm now able to keep up with lots of friends/good acquaintances that I made in Zimbabwe, plus lots of my school friends that I lost contact with when I moved aboard.

Thanks for recent responses. I would agree with most of the latest posts in that Facebook can be useful, helpful, fun, etc. I don't have a problem with the concept of Facebook per se (except when it gets into the realms of what custardo's talking about) - I said in my opening post that I'm finding it fun. So no need to defend Facebook itself. pingping, it's clearly been a lifeline for your family, and HedgeWitch, I can relate to what you wrote. Yes, it has its pluses; no question. It was the term "friend", in the context of Facebook, that I was putting under the spotlight.

Anyhoo, thanks for responses.

I feel a bit pedanty about it too. I would really like there to be an acquaintance option - that I could shove all the people I used to go to school/uni/met on a random night out into and keep my actual friends (all 20 or so of them once you've cut out the hundred + fake-friends) as they are.

Ah, now you're talking, laweaselmys! A fellow pedant.

I had an email from someone I gave something to on freecycle asking me to be one of their facebook friends

mad!

If you change your language settings to English (pirate), friends come up as "Me hearties"!!

LOL delllie! Like it. Is there a walk-the-plank function?