It began innocently enough...
On a particularly lonely Friday evening, I packed my computer and headed to the coffeehouse. Only a handful of people were lounging at Picasso's, so I found a corner table where I could sulk in privacy. I was browsing the profiles of numerous companions back home, when an unsolicited voice appeared from behind:
"Oh, you're on Facebook? We should be friends!"
After two months of working at the shop I managed, this was my first interchange I with our newest employee. She was a pre-med student at the University of Missouri, and I hadn't seen much reason to converse with a kid working limited hours opposite my schedule. All I had gathered was that she wore a little too much eye makeup, she had poor taste in men, and she giggled when she was nervous.
The next weekend, I was finishing my Sunday morning dish shift and spotted her sitting in the house. Making light of our previous conversation, I asked if we had become friends yet. Her eyes betrayed her attempt at a cheery expression, so I sat next to her and asked what was wrong. She had hit her first academic wall and wasn't accustomed to needing help with her studies. This unfamiliarity compounded with homesickness brought her to tears. As her mascara and eyeliner streamed down her face, I noticed a beauty and vulnerability through the eyes of Christ. This girl had a lovely heart, but she didn't know Jesus.
Over the next few weeks, we scheduled regular chats, and I learned the depth of my friend's spiritual captivity. Satan had used family, church, and the lacking integrity of Christian males to turn her away from the Gospel, so while she acknowledged a "light" within me, she resisted accepting Christ by faith. To her, I was a superman detached from her own blemishes rather than a sinner saved by grace. She had constructed for herself a lofty law to keep herself from further trouble, but it was a law all the same.
When she moved to Columbia on a more permanent basis, our entire relationship became built on Facebook statuses and comments; we attempted to schedule the occasional hangout; more often than not, her schooling (and dating relationships) prevented these. When we did get together, it became increasingly apparent that she had shut herself off to my faith, despite the "encouragement" of her responses to my blog posts.
Meanwhile, my fixation with reaping what I had sown was tearing me apart. Satan had convinced me that this could be a transactional relationship -- if I got her "saved," she would feel compelled to let me be a greater part of her life. He already knew that her heart was hardened. The dynamics of our relationship became twisted without verbal communication, leaving our occasional meetings fruitless for her and frustrating for me.
After moving back to Indiana, my friend Deron asked if Facebook could disrupt the natural order of relationships. For years, he concluded that people had allowed relationships to drift in and out of their lives, understanding that moving forward was an appropriate and healthy response to loss. We now live in an environment where letting go is frowned upon, and collecting our friends from the past allows us a false sense of intimacy.
A few weeks later, I deactivated my Facebook profile. I received a couple texts from long-distance friends; most of them were statements of understanding regarding my choice. As I was eating wings with my present friends, my phone buzzed. My former co-worker lamented that I had shut down our only form of communication. I replied that we'd have to work harder to make it work. I never heard from her again.
Our relationship ended the same place it began.
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I'm not promoting the idea that everyone should delete their accounts. In fact, I know believers who are incredibly gifted at networking for the sake of His Kingdom. But if you discover that Facebook has become nothing more than a crude mechanism keeping the heartbeat of a dead friendship alive, it's time to pull the plug. Do it for your heart.
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