Facebook Friends

"You and Jennie are now friends."

This past week I finally entered the twenty-first century and signed up for Facebook. It's been a strange, new world.

This is the social rush I never experienced in junior high. I log on frequently to see who has accepted my friend requests and thrill when someone actually requests me. I watch excitedly as my list of friends grows. I was so impressed with myself and my 32 friends until I visited someone else's profile and saw that they had 322 friends. And I had to wonder...

We in the United States use the word "friend" so loosely. When I lived in Argentina, my three friends there wondered about my constant talk of my "friends" back home. I used the word "friend" to refer not only to best friends and members of my social group, but also to acquaintances. Finally, my Argentine friends pressed me. How can you possibly be in relationship with so many people, they wondered. With so many friends, with whom do you share your deepest self? How do you know to whom you can entrust your vulnerable soul? The Argentines work with a more Aristotelean view of friends as "one soul dwelling in two bodies." A friend is not someone you partied with once; a friend is someone who is a part of you; a friend is the one you would die for. For them, there is no value in 322 superficial relationships; true riches are found in one, or three, true friends.

So, what does it take be a "friend?" Shared social interaction? Shared experiences? The amount of time you spend together? Could it be entrusting the other to carry and care for a piece of your heart?

Or maybe, it's just the click of a button.