To discuss social media friendships: Just like high school, but with more angst and fewer zits

There are big victories in life:

• Finding your true love
• Buying your first house
• Beating the odds against a disease
• Being crowned an American Idol

And there are small victories in life:

• Finding someone to make out with who is at least a 5 on a scale of 1-10. OK, at least a 3 and has all their teeth.
• Renting an apartment that is close to homes that you assume people who actually have money can buy
• Beating the odds against the swine flu
• Being crowned an American Idol on your Nintendo Wii

And, one more small victory:

• Getting to 100 Google followers on your blog

I take pride in the small victories in life. As soon as I have any, I'll let you know.* I was hoping to get to that magical, even number of 100 on the ol' followers list (in the right hand column). Not that it really matters- overall, counting people following on other services, the total is already over 100 (God bless all of you. No, seriously, I mean it. I hope God puts an extra dollar in your pocket or gives you a baby or gets rid of that rash or whatever you want).

But I was so very close, at 99, earlier this week. Now I'm back down to 97, which probably means some people were doing some blogging housekeeping and realized I hadn't made them laugh in a few months. They had to cut the dead wood. Understandable.**

That made me look at my own list of blogs I follow. I had more than 60 on my list. Surely, I thought, I can't be reading allll of these. So I went through and cut out blogs that hadn't been updated since Obama took office.

Most of the others, including all of you who comment regularly, were no brainers to keep. But then I considered some others, and that brings me to the new poll....

Do you keep following a blog, long after you've stopped reading it, because you don't want the person to notice you've stopped following it? Is this the most recent equivalent of removing a friend from your AOL Instant Messenger List, leading to them getting a message they aren't an approved friend when they try to talk to you? Or an even older version, not inviting them to your birthday party when they invited you to theirs?

Or is this more like a Facebook friend you remove? I had that situation recently. There was a much older guy I knew from doing theater together. He had always been nice, but just a little too nice-- with just one trench coat and one unmarked van, he'd have Dateline drooling. But when he requested to be my friend on Facebook, I felt bad saying no, so I approved it.

Soon, he would send me random messages, asking me what I was up to, if I wanted to hang out, etc. Now, if I was a 12-year-old boy and this was a Lifetime movie, I would have said, "Sure!" But, obviously, I ignored it, and one day decided to remove him as a friend. Sure enough, a few weeks later, he realized I had removed him, and he messaged me asking if he had done anything wrong.

Well, yeah, you creep me out more than a Troll doll.

It's amazing how a Facebook friendship can make you feel guilty. Even when you're trying not to get molested.

Fortunately on the blogging side, I only noticed one blog that I had long since heard from and had long since read, so that shouldn't cause any drama. I'm now down to 54 overall, and enjoy all of you.

So, dear readers, here's the new poll question:

Have you maintained a social media relationship out of guilt?

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* I have managed to get Bailey to pee outside. That counts as one.
** But if I can somehow get to 100 this week, that would be more awesome than Laura Winslow picking Steve Urkel over Stefan Urquelle.... Also, this post is not a guilt trip for anyone. Seriously.
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Here's the final tally on the last poll, about your favorite regular Wild ARS feature:
1. What I Learned from Cosmo 37 of 150 votes (Good news: I've got a Cosmo and Maxim to review... will do soon)
2. TV Play-by-Play 28 votes
3. Weekend Update, 27 votes
4. (tie) Month in Review 14 votes
4.. (tie) Love Coach cell phone texts 14 votes
6. Co-blogs 13 votes
7. Fake Andy Shaw of the Month, 9 votes
8. Music I Loved Fridays, 8 votes

Although, judging by the response, you all loved the As Seen on TV Week. If I ever get another product, I'll do a post on it.