The case for culling friends

Since I’m so old – 64 this summer – Facebook has always been my preferred form of social media. But if I was a softer soul there’s a feature on it that might really tug at my heartstrings: ‘See your memories.’ Because many of mine – going back more than a decade – are now blank of any actual memory: ‘Content not available.’

I know what these were: photographs of me with ex-friends (they’d always take the selfies, as I don’t have a camera-phone) who I’ve fallen out with and who have since deleted the photographs. In 90 per cent of cases, I’d say that I was the one who caused the falling-out. 

If I’m being honest, I don’t miss any of them. (Tell a lie: one of them had a disabled badge, meaning that we could park the car I bought her anywhere we liked – right outside restaurants, mostly. I felt like Princess Margaret!) But recently, being the grand old age I am, some of these friends I squabbled with have started dying.