packing (and unpacking)

the movers are coming tomorrow (we think) and while some of our things are still boxed from the last move, we have a long way to go on the packing front.

all of this worrying about packing and unpacking and what to keep and what to get rid of has gotten me thinking about how we keep people and how we decide to let them go.  in a world where our social lives are led more and more online, we can end up "saving" people and convincing ourselves we have more friends than we really do (or need).

last weekend at a bar, an acquaintance ended up getting really upset with me when i tried to let him know that my best friend would not be going home with him and that he should probably go find the friends that he came out with (all on her request, since she had already kissed him that night and was now unsure how to let him down).  he let me know that he was upset with me by telling me that we should be honest with ourselves and admit that we weren't friends.  this was totally beside the point, but it did make me think about who i am really friends with and why we pretend to like people when we don't.

this was compounded last night when i saw some girls that i know don't like each other acting like best friends on facebook.  now, most of us know that facebook is not real life, but it is a projection of ourselves and it makes me wonder why some of these people would want to project a friendship that isn't there.  following this (as well as a few glasses of wine) i decided that the guy from last weekend was right: we are not friends, i have never really liked him, and i really didn't feel like wasting my time and brain power on people like that.  so if you've found this through my posting on facebook, you made my drunken friend cut last night.  high school is over, and except for the few people that meant enough to me back then that i still care about them, i have no reason to keep so many people that i haven't seen in four years around.  college is also over, and if we haven't spoken since that one class two years ago, we won't be sending each other christmas cards, and you're coming off too.

i don't have 496 friends, but since the human brain can only remember 150 relationships at a time, i seriously doubt anyone else does either.  if facebook is how we present ourselves to the world outside those we see everyday, at least my projection won't be fake.