Unfriend

So, on the social networking addiction popularly known as Facebook, I have over 250 friends. Most are people I knew cursorily in college or high school, some that I've met only once but communicate with, and others that I know from my vast and varied travels.

Honestly, I can't keep track of that many people. Just like people that pass you in the hall, sometimes you don't notice if one is gone for a bit. Eventually you think about the person and you realize, "Hey, I haven't seen her in a while. I wonder how she's doing."

And then there are the people that you are more closely connected with. The ones whose absence immediately affects you. You may not notice for a day or two. But eventually you do, and then you wonder what happened.

As you may have guessed, Someone unfriended me this week. Usually when someone unfriends me, I notice the number of friends has gone down and I briefly look through my list, but can't figure out who it was. The rejection stings a little bit, but I figure whoever it was, we probably hadn't talked in a while, and it's not so great a loss.

But this Someone... I noticed almost immediately. I noticed because every day waking up and facing his rejection three months and twenty-three days ago is a weight on my heart. Like a long drag on a cigarette, each breath drags at my heart and burns a little more away. I noticed because after the drama of "The Phone Call" thirteen days ago, which resulted in a strongly-worded email from me, explaining how we are NOT friends and Someone has NO business asking me how I'm doing after essentially telling me that he didn't really care about me anymore.

Someone then didn't email me back apologizing for breaking my heart. Someone didn't call me again (after all, I asked him not to). Someone just unfriended me.

Now to be fair I have to say that I did pretty much restrict all his Facebook access to me after he was kind of a jerk to some of my friends on my wall. But I didn't unfriend him. I thought about it, but I didn't.

Now that he's pulled the plug and clicked that button, I feel more rejected than ever. And I need Jesus more than ever.