I mean, I have 90+ 'friends' on there but I'd say quite definitely less than half of them would I class as 'actual' friends (don't worry - you online types have your own very special section in my heart!) and the rest are acquaintances from anywhere I've ever gone to school, worked with, from uni or through other people.

What I have found is that increasingly, people I know through some way or another are adding me as friends when either I never knew them well at all (like my brother's housemate, who I've met an entire once and didn't speak to much anyway!) or didn't like much when I did know them - this is mainly schooltypes.

But I feel bad pressing the reject button and will generally only do so if I really don't know the person AT ALL.

Until today.

I have never mentioned her in here, but I went to senior school with a girl called Emma (and I must point out that most Emmas I've met are lovely people, but this one wasn't), who was my best friend from the age of 13 to 15. Who for no real reason began hating me and made my life a complete and utter misery for the final four months I was in year 11. She was the ringleader in our group of four friends and I never stood a chance.

Let me dig out an old paper diary, because it's seven years ago and I can't remember precisely how I felt, just that it was pretty bad.

Ok, here are some excerpts...:

'School was totally crap and depressing today.'

'School was alright today apart from the fact Emma barely uttered two words to me all day.'

'I hate school so much.'

'School was pretty much shit today.'

'Emma is making me so depressed. I don't know why I'm letting her get to me really...'

'Just thinking about having to go back to school on Tuesday makes me feel sick.'

What kind of 15 year old should be made to feel like that?

This was in 2000 and fortunately I started hanging out with a different group of girls by the summer (including Katie, who has been my best friend ever since) and I never spoke to Emma again. In fact we managed to ignore each other for the entire two years of 6th form before we all left school forever.

But now she has had the audacity to add me as a friend on Facebook. I can think of nothing I'd rather do than forget she ever existed and would probably be well on the way to doing so if it wasn't for that damn website! So yeah, Facebook is definitely the proverbial double-edged sword, which I think is the moral to this sorry tale.

I haven't done it yet but I'm going to click on the 'reject' button, say a silent 'Fuck you, Emma,' and let it go, because I'm not 15 and at the edge anymore. It's just not worth it.

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