We make jokes about having a thousand friends on Facebook and maybe only a handful in real life.

As silly as we think it is, we still never really get around to deleting all those friends we’ve fallen out of touch with.

Friendships die, that’s just a fact of life.

They don’t have to go down in flames or in some terrible falling out, but it’s natural for some friendships to fade and ease out of our lives.

Facebook doesn’t allow this process to happen and sometimes that isn’t very healthy.

Think of all the friends you had in high school that you would’ve lost touch with, and while you may not communicate directly, you seem to know all too much about them because of Facebook. 

It becomes more awkward and uneasy, and you’re constantly reminded how you’re no longer close with someone every time you see an update or look at their page.

It doesn’t matter how many pictures you have together or how many statuses you tagged a person in; if you feel uncomfortable or artificial talking to them, then it might be time to let that friendship go.

We lie to ourselves saying that one day we might message a person again or we might make up, and while life is full of endless possibilities, at some point we need to accept that some things just aren’t going to happen.

Deleting someone doesn’t always mean that you dislike them as a person, it might just mean that you’d rather remember them as you actually knew them, then let the memory of them become something it never was.

We, for the most part, only see positives of a relationship when viewing it through the lens of Facebook.

Facebook romanticizes relationships and when things turn sour it hurts that much more.

Not deleting someone that you should is just asking for trouble.

It’s too tempting to look back and remind yourself of moments that otherwise, in the natural course of time, would have been forgotten. 

Sometimes the rediscovery of old memories is OK, but sometimes it just holds you back and keeps you from clearly looking at the relationship objectively.

You don’t have to worry that deleting someone from Facebook will be deleting all memory of that person, because if they really meant something to you, trust me, you’ll remember them.

Personally, I’ve never regretted deleting someone on Facebook.

I have my memories, they’re more real to me than cyberspace could ever represent them, and my life is moving forward.

Sometimes more isn’t always merrier and that’s OK.

Kaycie Brauer is a senior English major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or denopinions@gmail.com.