The figure that appears on our Facebook friends tab is in no way indicative of the number of people we actually consider to be friends – everyone knows that.
Still, even with the social network allowing its users to file people away as ‘acquaintances’ (second in harshness only to the ultimate burn: ‘Unfriend’), our profiles become fully accessable to more people year-after-year, the majority of which you probably wouldn’t cross the road to say hello to
Matt Kulesza wants to change all that. In a project he’s calling, “an exercise in remembering to socialise with and get to know people outside of the ‘book”, the young Australian plans to meet all of his 1000 plus Facebook friends for a one-to-one coffee over the next three years, and is blogging about the journey as he goes via his Tumblr account ‘1000+ Coffees’.
For example, after meeting Facebook friend Jess Maguire (who was introduced to Matt while co-hosting a radio show alongside his then girlfriend), Kulesza wrote, “Jess doesn’t like the documentaries of Nick Bloomfield and does an excellent impersonation of his narration style. I drank a double espresso and Jess drank a soy latte.”
After his coffee date with musician Kate Cake, Matt described them as “internet friends” – a concept all Facebook users can likely relate to.
An alternative to unfriending
Each post comes with some background information on the person of the day (number of mutual friends etc), plus a photo of the duo enjoying their coffee. According to Kulesza, he decided to take up the project as an alternative to unfriending people he didn’t know all that well.
“I was just going to do a cull to get rid of people, but then I thought that I should see if I could get to know them instead,” Matt told Entertainmentwise. “It seemed like a cool social experiment, and amazingly has changed my life for the better.”
Matt has promised not to miss a single Facebook friend, whether it be old enemies, ex girlfriends, or people he’s never actually met before in the flesh.