Come to Some Bad End

No sooner had I written about my attempts to pare my facebook "friends" down to people I really, actually know (I've been busily de-friending the ones I don't on their birthdays so I can disappear into the crowd unnoticed) -- than I got this alarming status update.

"I've been stood up for the wedding."

 I don't know this girl, but I worried about her all through dinner --- trying to figure out: was she just stood up for a date for a wedding (which is admittedly a bad day), or did she get stood up for her own wedding (as "the" wedding would seem to imply) -- which might (or might not, depending on your point of view) be a real tragedy. (I don't know the guy, but find myself thinking she is probably better off.)

And now if she disappears from my feed, I will assume (like everyone in Nacadoches, if you listen to too much Steve Earle) that she "has come to some bad end."

I once watched a whole marriage dissolve on Facebook -- I didn't know either of the parties. I still had hope that it would all work out, even after I got the news that said "Tom is now listed as Single." I still maintained a shred of optimism when it said "Marie went from Single to 'it's complicated.'" But even I had to give up when Facebook informed me "Marie is now 'in a relationship with Holly.'"

I read somewhere the other day (probably on facebook) that "Social Media is like daytime television for people who went to college."