Thinking Onto Paper: 158 Friends

158 friends. That's what I see. I guess it's the first thing anyone sees. How many friends they have. They meet someone for the first time, say, at a party. They talk to them and, stuff getting their number. In this day and age, they just find out their name. Then they log onto Facebook and search and add them.

This is something I sometimes do, but I only press 'Send Friend Request' if I've met them on numerous occasions. Otherwise, in reply to the request, should they choose to accept it, you get the incredibly awkward wall post saying 'Hey, thanks for the add, do I know you?' and you have to go and explain how you know them, and you have two possible answers: 'Ohh, that's right, heyy!!' or 'Don't remember, sorry :S.' And if it's the latter, you explain some more and they still don't remember and then you just give up and all hope is lost.

Or, to put it simply, they don't add you at all.

I like to think I'm smart about who I add, but the truth is I'm not really. I don't think many people are these days. I mean, I don't go around adding random people, but I can easily name people who would. People who I see around all the time but don't necessarily talk to... that's the majority of my friend's list. At my school, I only talk to the people I hang around with. You tend not to hang outside your stereotype. That's just how high school works, whether you're conscious of it or not.

158 friends- but are they really friends? A friend is supposed to be 'a person attached to another by feelings of affection or personal regard.' Most of the people on my friends list, and on most other people's, don't fit this criteria. 

I suppose it's all for image. Everyone wants to look good to their peers; to seem desirable. They want to have the best clothes, best make-up, popularity- in the form of their Facebook profile.

But what is popularity, really? In movies, it's always the petite, blonde, head cheerleader who everyone secretly hates. According to the dictionary, popularity is 'being popular- regarded with great favour, approval or affection, especially by the general public.' Somehow, this doesn't fit with the stereotype of popular people you see in movies or on TV shows.

Somewhere along the line, someone's gotten it wrong. Real life can't be defined by something straight-forward, like a dictionary, however much this displeases me. For instance, love- it's defined as 'a profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person.' But it's a lot more complicated than that. I couldn't begin to explain it if I tried.

How can this be so? How could Google ever be wrong*?

This is the question that haunts me- why are 'popular people' never really popular at all? Why is it the ones who are truly popular by definition that are deemed 'uncool' or 'unpopular'?

It is a twisted world we live in...

*Well, technically, Google could never be wrong as it is merely a search provider and does not provide answers. It simply gives you sources to find the answers you seek.