I have 870 friends on Facebook.
Yes, that sounds just like that silly commercial, and yes, that commercial is pretty accurate.

That said...
The whole "unfriending" thing has me in a quandary.
I may "block" your posts, I may "unsubscribe" from your status updates, but I won't "unfriend" you.

Why?

Because even though I might not want to read your absurd tirades about whatever random subject you are ranting about today, and I might not want to deal with your illiterate, uneducated comments on my posts, I refuse to delete you from my life the way our ancestors erased and obliterated their less-than-upstanding family members. We all have 'em... the girl with the erased face who humiliated her family by getting pregnant out of wedlock, or the missing head in the family portrait that belonged to the guy who entered into an interracial union. (And we won't even mention the pictures with the gay, divorced, or otherwise shunned family members.)


Seriously, if you are my friend on Facebook, I count you as a friend. I may disagree with you. I may have to squeeze my eyes shut when you comment on a post. I may even have to "block" you or "unsubscribe" in order to protect that fragile state I call "peace of mind," but I won't unfriend you. I like to think I'm more mature than that.

Just because I disagree with you, find you annoying, or want to slap some sense into you, doesn't mean I don't consider you a friend. It just means I consider you a friend with issues which I hope you (or I, or both) will outgrow.