Ever been tempted to perform a Facebook cull? Of course you have. Let’s face it, if you’ve been solidly pressing ‘Accept’ since 2006, the number of people you count as ‘friends’ on the social networking site probably reaches into the late hundreds. That girl you met when you bonded over your mutual love of chilli sauce at that kebab shop in Manchester? Yep, she’s on there.
As we often joke though, calling your connections ‘friends’ is basically laughable. How many do you actually speak to on a regular basis? Do you really give a rat’s arse that some girl from primary school just went to Paris on her holiday? Not really. So why are you still hanging on to all of them?
A few months back, Matt Kulesza, 28, from Melbourne, decided enough was enough and a mass deletion was on the cards – except what he actually ended up doing was the opposite.
‘When I was thinking about going through the culling process, my thought was going to be, “Could I have a coffee with this person?” And if the answer was “no” then I was going to delete them. But then I thought this could be an interesting idea to put into practice,’ Matt told us.
As part of his project, Matt gave himself three years to have coffees with each and every one of his 1,086 Facebook ‘friends’. And his Tumblr 1000+ Coffees was born.
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At last count there were 1.23 billion monthly active users on Facebook and despite recent reports claiming Generation Z are shunning the website, more than a third of the UK still admit to logging into the site on a daily basis. The official average amount of friends people have on the site is around 300, but this number goes up depending on age. I myself have 749, while the average number of my friends’ friends is 733. How many of those do I actually know IRL, though? Well, that’s a different story.
‘There’s a lot of people on my Facebook that I’d like to touch base with, but it’s kind of weird to send someone a message like, “Hey do you want to get a coffee?” Like there’s some weird social media code that we have,’ explains Matt. ‘Now I have this reason to catch up and giving it a reason has made people feel more comfortable.
‘The weirdest thing, though, is that social media has actually got to a point in our lives where my project is exciting. Having coffee outside of social media is actually an interesting thing for people!’
Matt also had a very good reason for choosing coffee over alcohol: ‘I would basically be hungover everyday!’ he says.
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So how did he choose the order he’s meeting the ‘friends’ in? ‘It’s happening pretty much organically. Sometimes I just catch up with close friends because it’s exhausting speaking intensely with people that you don’t know from everyday life, so sometimes I throw in a close friend just to make it a little easier,’ he says.
And how many is he doing in a week? ‘I’m on about four or five at the moment. Sometimes more.’
All of which is fine, for friends based in Matt’s hometown of Melbourne, but what happens when he has to start meeting his friends overseas? ‘I’m not sure how I’m going to do that quite yet! I’ve pretty much got someone in every continent. I’ve got three years to do it and I love travelling and I usually save up to go overseas once a year, so it’s just something I’ll put in my plans for next year, I guess!’
For me, I have to admit there are people on my ‘friend’ list who ring no bells with me whatsoever, plus, there are plenty of people I’ve never actually met IRL. Matt though, claims to have met each and every one of his Facebook friends at one point, so hopefully there shouldn’t be any suprises.
One thing I was curious about though was exes – surely he's got to be nervous about getting back in contact with a few of them? ‘I don’t mind apologising to people. I’ve done a couple of apologies already. I caught up with an ex-girlfriend and an ex-housemate who I felt I needed to apologise to [the ex-housemate for throwing impromptu parties and the ex-girlfriend for their ‘whirlwind relationship’]. If I feel like I need to make amends with people then that’s something I’ve now got an amazing opportunity to do.’
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Is there anyone he’s particularly looking forward to? ‘One person was Verity. I’d wanted to see her for ages because she converted to Islam after high school. Before, she was just a white girl from suburban Australia. It was amazing to hear her story as that’s a pretty huge life change.’
So how does Matt feel about Facebook now? ‘I think it’s here to stay. Some people just want to add everyone and some people just use it for their closest 50 friends. I think it’s an interesting time to establish what is this thing and what’s the best way for me to use it?
‘It’s so important in today’s age to connect and really speak with people and to remember that as much as Facebook does connect us, it does disconnect us as well.’
Keep up to date with Matt’s coffees here.
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Follow Jess on Twitter @Jess_Commons
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.