The Cow took a closer look. She couldn't quite figure out how a misanthrope had friends - either real ones or virtual - but the author didn't dwell on that point. But she wondered if it was al coincidental. Suddenly, her inbox had been flooded with friend requests, including from people she'd never met.
"Those are the difficult ones," she admitted to Gramsci. "It's very easy to reject some Bremnercrat who feigns interest or intimacy, or to diss some person who wouldn't share their chips with you back in primary school, but how do you deal with 'Blake from Dalhousie' or 'Angel'?"
"Ignore them?" suggested Gramsci pragmatically.
"Yesbut," protested the Cow, "What if Blake turns out to be that real hottie you scored back in the pub in second year when the noise was too loud to catch his name? What if Angel is the professional name of your best friend from high school who went into the pole-dancing industry?"
Gramsci rolled his eyes dramatically. "Chances are," he pointed out, "that even if Blake was a hottie back in second year, by now he's got a wife who doesn't understand him, a tribe of children he can't support, and a pickup truck that only runs when the weather's good. And that his sixpack long ago became a papsak. And as for Angel - do you really need the competition?"
The Cow sighed softly. Perhaps there was a reason one lost touch with people, after all, and technology that helped undermine the distance wasn't necessarily a good thing. Her hoof hovered over the "reject" button, ominously.