Leaving aside the deeply boring part about Zuckerberg’s AI bots, what I don’t understand is the need for 15 friends. Does the average American have no family? No job? No household tasks?
How can one squeeze regular outings with 15 friends into a normal life?
Even if you take them in batches of five, it’s three outings a week to maintain weekly contact. Who is with the kids while you are out with these batches thrice weekly? Who makes the dinner and folds laundry? Who packs the lunches and changes the bedding?
Or is the idea that these friends would agree to meet once every two weeks? Good luck finding 15 such accommodating bastards.
And then there are the text messages. Each friend needs to be buoyed up with strings of 6-7 messages at least every three days. You need to see, read, and watch each friend’s links and memes and react to them at least minimally. There are doctor’s appointments, kids’ milestones, profligate cousins, husbands with back pain, drama at the knitting circle, etc. And then the diagnoses begin. And the surgeries. And the cancer scares. And the actual cancers. Nobody who is regularly undergoing this with three friends would agree to 15. I’d enthusiastically consent to immediate euthanasia if forced to do this for 15 people, batches or no batches.
Of course, Zuckerberg is an individual who says things like “having demand for 15 friends”, which makes it clear that only months of serious torture would induce anybody to be his friend. But this comment still struck a nerve. I constantly feel guilty for not being able to give enough to my friends, and the idea that I’d want to populate my life with fifteen and then perish with guilt altogether is not pleasant.
Clarissa's Blog 
Leave a comment