So this morning I got on the tube to embark on my daily mission to Holborn, feeling far from fresh in the cold, wet drizzle that is far too common in this country in May! Surprisingly, I actually spot an empty seat so I hurry to sit down, get as comfortable as I can and whip out my Stieg Larsson with great enthusiasm...a good novel is a must on the train journey to work, gets my brain started for the day and more importantly, distracts me from the drooling man sleeping in the seat opposite me or the woman sitting next to me putting her face on, flicking her bronzer dust all over me as she does so...nice.

A chapter in and I’m so engrossed that I haven’t been at all aware of people getting on and off and have no idea which stop I’m at. Taking my eyes off the page for the first time in 15 minutes I look up to find that I’m at Camden Town and still have a few more stops to go until I have reached my destination. I’m about to return my attention to my book when I suddenly realise that the drooling man sitting opposite me is now a young lady, a very familiar looking young lady. She notices I am staring at her and she stares back. Where do I know this girl from? She’s still staring. I ponder over it for a few seconds and soon remember that I went to school with her...and it was only a few weeks prior that I received a friend request from her on Facebook which I accepted because...well, you know, I went to school with her...hardly spoke to the girl in my 7 years there but hey ho!

As she continued to stare and look away and stare again, I began to feel slightly awkward. I never spoke to her at school, why should I speak to her now? But then if that’s how I’m going to look at it, why did I accept her friend request?! Then, that feeling of awkwardness turned into a puzzling one...why did she send me a friend request if she won’t even say hello to me face-to-face on the tube? Hmm...The interaction was becoming so odd as I waited for her to say something that I got up and moved towards the doors as the train approached my stop.

After I arrived home from work that evening, I signed onto my Facebook account as I do most days to catch up on the daily, unimportant nonsense, only to find that I had received a private message from the girl I had seen on my way to work earlier that day. ‘Hi Angelica! I swear I saw you on the train this morning!? Sorry I didn’t say hi, I was so tired...couldn’t figure out if it was you or not hehe!! Hope you’re well, what you up to now?’ ...What the!? She couldn’t tell if it was me or not yet, she knew to send this strange message to me...funny that!? Despite her attempt to act like she was ever my friend, I deleted the poor girl. If she was my friend, she would have been able to say hi to me right? She wasn’t my only victim that evening...I ended up deleting quite a few more ‘friends’ who I hardly or would never speak to, wondering why I even had them on my friends list in the first place?

Has the global phenomenon that is Facebook caused some sort of personality disorder where people are becoming incapable of having real, spoken conversations with each other? Have we forgotten how to interact offline? I began to wonder again, why did she add me? Was she actually being truthful and the honest reason she failed to acknowledge me was simply due to her tiredness? Did she add me because she was genuinely interested in what I was up to now? Or was she just being nosy that day and fancied having a peek at my photos with no intention of ever talking to me? What do you think? I’m going with the latter! A message to all of you with a silly amount of friends on Facebook (1000+, come on who on earth knows over 1000 people!?), are they really your friends? Why are they adding you if you never speak to them? Will you speak to them if you see them on the tube one day or will they speak to you? Think about it...and enjoy your clearout!!