Familiarity breeds contempt

It's true that familiarity breeds a repugnant and an engulfing contempt which finally enstranges a relationship - be it love, business, social or just anything you can think of.

Sometime ago on social media especially Facebook, when you become friends with people, one of the two parties slides into the inbox of the other to acknowledge friendship only because it's a privilege. Other times, it happens in the full glare of anyone who shares their timelines. This, they do at least once or twice even if it was going to be the only chance at friendship. But now.

It has become a haram to openly acknowledge friendship on each other's wall because when you do, you can become an object of public ridicule for a while and sometimes from time to time, through a screenshot to remind you of your folly or when you arrived. It portrays you as a softie who is all sentimental. Therefore, it's now okay to remain friends with people for so many years without a hi, as though that's how we do in real life where we get to see people, animated.

Why are we no longer friendly?

If all we want is to add and remain friends with people just to be privy to their lifes, then why do we add them as friends (and not follow them in worst case scenarios)? Perhaps the laxity of Facebook's terms of engagement has also helped to make this anomaly pervasive, unlike Twitter that thrives on economy, where you don't automatically become friends with people only because they are available. No, you decide to follow back. You decide to be friends with the fellow too, otherwise the friendship remains a one way affair where only the former gets to follow you.

Aside the algorithms that influences friendship, I think that we have become unfriendly only because too many people have become overly friendly - a gesture that freaks most people out, like someone sliding into your inbox for the first time and begins to address you as 'my dear' without allowing the friendship to define itself over time. I also think that technology or the aid of bundled data has made it way too accessible for us to 'see' and interact with each other all the time which ostensibly blinds people to blur the lines.

It is necessary to maintain respect for everyone you become friends with because it's an earned privilege and that would be it, only we don't mind if there are other motives as long as none of it is to hurt them. Only be familiar with people if you can be decorous about it but for those who easily gets awed by the lights, be friends but don't get too familiar with people so you can always keep contempt at bay and this has nothing to do with being anti-social, being narcissistic or too goal-oriented.

Those of you with good lace fronts,  just don't get too caught up in this virtual world. #agb



The writer tweets @vilejah