To all the friends I've lost before

I've been watching this cool meme on LiveJournal in which one writes something to ten LJ friends, but does not identify to which friend one is writing. Although I somewhat admire the notion and the mystery, I'm afraid that if I just write "hey you're cool" ten times it will seem unduly flattering. I love my friends' list, though, and someday I'd like to write a post with a message to each individual friend.

I thought that I might achieve a more respectful distance from the subject matter if I wrote my messages anonymously to people who have defriended me. I am quite good, overall, at being defriended. I subscribe to all the right theories that a "friends list" is a communication convenience rather than a demarcation of one's literal friends. But still, sometimes I get de-friended, and say to myself "hey, I was trying to really *be* a friend" or, improbably but truly, "hey, that person is just way more cool than I am!".

But people friend and de-friend for all kinds of reasons. I rarely de-friend unless someone is needlessly offensive, but I fully support anyone's friending and defriending. Yet, sometimes I wonder about those who de-firended me.

It's a bit silly, to even think about such things, when I have a really cool friends' list, to think at all about a software convenience. But sometimes I do. Yet this new meme is great, because I can take a very generous (if not quite complete) sample of those who de-friended me, and play this meme a different way.

So for this morning's insomnia, I present:

( to all the friends I've lost before )