Dear Facebook Acquaintance:

Perhaps we shared a funny moment at a party and thought we would be friends when we sobered up the next day, perhaps you’re the significant other to another insignificant. Maybe we even went to high school together and never had more than one conversation, or we might have shared an elementary school... I just wanted to thank you. I’m sure you saw me on the bus today or perhaps at the mall, or maybe I even ordered an ice cream cone from you at Dairy Queen. But, thank you (as I’m sure you too are thankful) for not saying hello. For opening the door to what would have no doubt been an awkward conversation, probably lasting no more than 3 minutes where we both would have been obligated to spew some rather unimportant facts about ourselves, which would warrant equally dull responses from one another such as,

“So, how’s it going?” *Fake enthusiasm at having run into you/me
“Oh, not bad just shopping/headed to work/buying some stuff for a barbeque... you?”
“Blah blah blah...”

I think we can both agree that this conversation will only make it harder to delete the other person from your friend list in the near future (which poses the question, how long does FB etiquette require us to stay friends in the World Wide Web? As I type this I have about 149 friends, which is a pretty average number, but I would hypothesise, that about 70% of the people on said friends list are just acquaintances...) You might have, 325 friends and you just keep me added because it makes you feel important that the world knows (depending on your privacy settings *eye roll) just how many “friends “ you have. I suppose I should be thankful you added me, or the other way around, and if you happen to be an acquaintance of mine I nearly guarantee I found something interesting to look at about your life on your page, as I’m sure you did mine. There is always tons of embarrassment to go around on the ol’ Facebook Profile be it drunken pics, ill thought out status or the ever popular count down to who knows what... “78 more days till some exciting event in my life!!!”

So, maybe we will remain online friends for a little while longer until one of us grows some balls and faces the fact that we are obviously not in each other’s lives. Or maybe we will just creep on each other periodically, or we might even become better acquainted one day, but until then, thanks for not saying hello.