De-cluttering part 2.

It only took 2 minutes. 2 whole minutes to skim through my facebook list of 'friends' and debate 'do I ever want to see this person again?' No? Ok - delete. Delete. Delete. Delete. Easy peasy. 100 gone in 2 mins. Try it - it is amazing how many folk you don't care about, even if they were lovely to you back in 1986 at a festival.

But somehow it wasn't enough. I still felt the political pull of 'can I really delete my Husband's cousin even though we have never met and are never likely to meet? What about my cousin's cousins? If I see them at a wedding in 5 years will they remember I de-friended them and ignore me as the bride and groom cut the cake??' Plus, I'd had to log on to cull and that brought me to my home page filled with endless baby pics and people showing off how fabulous their lives are. A bit of sick crawled into my mouth and I thought - enough. So I de-activated my account. It felt liberating.

Meanwhile one of my recent posts about said cull brought a few folk out of the woodwork - the 'we must meet' texters who never follow through. One emailed me - someone I haven't seen in over 6 years or in fact been proper buddies with since 1996. I was kinda surprised, even though this person had asked to be my facebook mate (everyone does though so it kind of means nothing) and had traded a few facebook messages here and there.

Anyway, the email was nice and I can never not reply, so I did. They emailed again and then suggested that we meet up. Which was kinda odd. Why now? We lost touch a long time ago, amidst some weirdness involving a love triangle (I wasn't one of the corners) between friends and the last time we had a proper conversation at a TV wrap party this person had waltzed off during what I considered to be a meaningful discussion where old grievances were being buried. So why trawl over old ground? I remember once that a sour Comedian I once dated told me that at a party his mate said 'there is this great mate of mine, you have to meet him' and Comedian replied 'thanks but I've got enough friends. If one dies I'll get back to you.' I thought at the time - what a cock, but now I kind of get it. You get to a stage in life where you have your buddies of old and friendship is such an investment of time, it really takes someone amazing for you to welcome them into your life. Comedian was a cock by the way - a misogynist one to boot.

Anyway, I digress. This email person has a good heart and was always a laid back affable sort, and feeling like it would look really bad to say 'no, let's not meet' I said ok - even thought it is hard for me to ever get the hell out with Husband's job and Sproglet.

They never replied!!

Which is fine - but why ask to meet up in the first place? Possibly they were under the influence and had a small moment of whiskey flavoured nostalgia or maybe they just wondered if I would jump at the bait. Who knows. But people are strange aren't they? Christ, am I - the social animal, the talk a glass eye to sleep, the share my life story with checkout girl, becoming a fucking hermit?

I think with all my house de-junking that it was only a matter of time before I started life-dejunking. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Forget the politics - cull I say, cull and watch your life feel infinitely richer as a result.