If We're Not Friends, Don't Add Me

As of this moment, I have 54 unanswered friend requests on facebook. I know I'll probably never accept or decline most of them. I'm too tender-hearted to say no, but too practical to say yes. This is a letter to those people:

Dear Person,

Sorry for not calling you "friend." Well, I'm not really sorry. We are not in fact friends. Sure maybe we met at a party a year ago, but that was the last time I saw you. I didn't even catch your last name. I probably don't remember your first name. I probably had to creepily look through your pictures to see if I even recognized you. I don't think that one encounter was grounds for me having to read every status update that you post for the rest of your mortal existence.Trust me, if I was that interested in the lives of total strangers, I would watch reality TV.
     
Person, you don't know me so you probably don't realize that I can hardly hold on to a serious relationship for a week. Imagine the pressure you are placing on my shoulders by asking me to accept your friendship request that for all I know is valid til death do you part. Every time you listen to Lady Gaga on Spotify, or like One Direction's page, or cryptically complain about vague problems, or post pictures of your homemade pasta, I have to see it. The more strangers that I add, the more time I have to spend scrolling through my news feed until I find people that I actually know. Now with advertisements, my news feed is infinity long, and I just can't endure the possibility of it becoming more dense with information about people I don't know.
     
"What's the big deal?" you might ask. "I just wanted to get to know you." I guess I have a different outlook on interpersonal relationships. Call me old fashioned, but I like to meet and get to know people face to face.
       
If you don't know what I'm talking about when I say "face to face" then ask your grandparents. They can tell you about times shortly after the Jurassic era when there were no cell phones, the internet was in black and white, and you could buy a new home for a nickel. Back in those days they didn't have facebook. Instead, people would use their mouths to talk to each other! Crazy right? Like, what's the point of having thumbs if you aren't even going to text people? In those times, people didn't have ipods either, so they actually used their ears to listen to what others said. Sounds exhausting right? But that's what they did. And guess what, that's what I prefer also.

So if you want to be friends, come to La Jolla 102. We can talk, laugh, cry, bake cookies, frolic in a meadow, play Truth or Dare, create inside jokes, watch funny videos, or do a host of other things that real friends do.
     
Your less-than-friend,
Tanner G