And what’s it take for a blogger to get a little love from her friends? Seriously. I delete more spam every day than I get emails (and I’m not talking email promotion kinds) from friends. Yeah. I totally was not just begging for insightful and friendly comments right now.

What’s a friend anyway? In the age of Web 2.0 and all things social media, the word ‘friend’ has become dilute. Originally a noun, it’s now taken on the form of verb as well. We friend people on MySpace, Facebook, Friendster (still a huge hit in the Philippines and countries other than the US). We add friends to our buddy lists on AIM, meebo, Gchat, and other instant messenger programs. We friend each other on LiveJournal (and all other clones). In blogs, we add friends (regardless of whether or not we’ve actually met these people IRL or otherwise) to our blogrolls — even though we try to make it seem more sophisticated than it is by saying ‘blogroll’. There are friend lists on World of Warcraft, Puzzle Pirates and other assorted MMORPGs (did I spell that right? Friends? Help!).

Who are our friends? When I was younger, friends were the people who you had things in common with, shared the same jokes, the same classes — essentially the people who you didn’t want to throttle on a daily basis. As I grew, friends were shuttled into different categories: best friends, close friends, friends of convenience (parental term, not mine) and acquaintances.

Now we have networking friends. MySpace friends. Facebook friends (which now seem to span everything from elementary school contacts you’ve fallen out of touch with, one night stands that don’t seem to understand ‘one night’, to business contacts, and family members). Friendster friends (who in the US of A still uses this?). Business associates. The list goes on and on.

But who, out of your 400+ friends, do you still talk to as actual friends? Since when did the word ‘friend’ need so many descriptive adjectives?