What's in a friend?

Define 'friend'. Five years ago, it wouldn't have been as complicated as I believe it is today. Nowadays describing this term has become a daunting task, what with the advent of the internet, social networking sites and instant messaging. This term has been abused, causing its value to decline and making the correct definition very vague.

The oxford dictionary defines a friend as 1. a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations 2. a familiar or helpful thing 3. a person who supports a particular cause or organization.

Sounds simple enough. Straightforward and to the point, right? So when you receive the email "XYZ added you as a friend on Facebook", there shouldn't be any problems.

Recently I logged into my Facebook profile and this is what I saw:

Blardy hell, where did all these 'friends' come from? Don't get me started on Friendster. It was almost double that.

So I checked out the 21 friend requests and it turns out I don't know any of them. Yeah sure some of them were mates from high school or met once or never before, but none of them actually know me. I'm not trying to act all cocky and decline them, but I refuse to let them into my circle of friends just so that I can be a statistic on their profile.

This is where the problem with defining 'friend' comes in. Do you accept somebody's request when you have never personally met them yet have 30 friends in common? Or you went to the same school but barely know their real name? I'm sorry, but if memory serves me right, none of these friend descriptions fall into any of the categories explained above.

Just explain this: I have a 'friend' who claims to be 'friends' with Siti Nurhaliza, Lee Chong Wei, Kenny Sia, Afdlin Shauki and Jeff Ooi. But only through Facebook, and he hardly ever leaves his room. Go figure.

I think the root of the problem lies within the competitive nature of many people. Like I said before this is like some kind of popularity contest where the popularity meter is gauged by the number of 'friends' you have on your profile. I hate this trend, but it seems inevitable. I also hate having to categorise friends based on how close you are, but this may be the only solution. Next time I might want to receive an email like "XYZ added you as an acquaintance on Facebook".

Signed, sealed, delivered.