Beware the Ides of Unfriend Day
November 17 has been designated National Unfriend Day. I am passing this along so you know about it. Any people in the past who asked to be your friend on Facebook or any other social media that you reluctantly agreed to “friend,” but whom you have since changed your mind about, this is the day to do it.
I know this is a very hard thing to do. Unless, of course, after you have found out what your “friends” are really like, you know you have to bite the bullet. Do you really want to stay “friends” with a person who invites you to come out with them every Thursday to share their once-a-week hobby of peeping in windows? Do you really want to stay “friends” with the guy who says he can tell you all about your new wife because he once had a torrid affair with her? Do you really want to stay “friends” with a guy who invites you to join the American Nazi Party and asks you to come to their next meeting? No, you don’t.
So you have been thinking about this for some time. And on that Thursday, you don’t need to tell them the truth.
“No, it’s not about your live tarantula collection. I’ve been thinking about tarantulas too as a matter of fact. It’s just that November 17 is ‘unfriend’ day and I have decided I have to just randomly ‘unfriend’ half the friends I have because it’s just become too unwieldy. No offense.” [expand]
On the other hand, November 17 is going to be a very unpleasant day. All over the country people are going to offload other people who thought they were friends. This is a heavy burden on what I would call the karma of that day. And consider this. You can cut some people out. But others can cut you out. You won’t know until the day ends how you made out.
And if it turns out it’s a disaster and people have fled you in droves, you won’t know why that is. And you will never know, not because you know they can use “Unfriend Day” as a cover. It’s just that as an “unfriended” person, you can’t ask.
Also, during that day of bad karma, a great convulsion will descend on America and the rest of the world. That will be a night teenagers will go out onto the streets with baseball bats to smash car windows, when people will rip out their hair, when men and women announce they want to divorce, a night when Buddhists will set themselves on fire, a night when people will leap off bridges. It will be a night when people will decide to quit their jobs, will pack up their cars and drive aimlessly around at high speeds, will jump out of windows, will throw things at small dogs, will urinate in public, will cheat at cards, will take massive overdoses of Ambien and will suffer huge bouts of depression. There will be great sorrow in the world. It would be best to stay indoors that night under your bed. Although to those people who can’t take it under your bed, I say get out of the house and head out to a bar or tavern where people are going to be drinking until they can’t stand up. There you will also find people weeping uncontrollably and looking desperately for a new friend.
That new friend might just be you. Who knows if this could happen? A personal encounter. Sometimes things like this happen on days like this.
* * *
Before dawn on November 18, a warm rain will wash all the emotions of the night away, and shortly after that a new day will dawn, bringing a new beginning.
Stand up straight and hand in hand with your new friend, march out to meet the day.
This could be your big chance.