CELEBRITY!!

A while ago I got a notification from this system that I had achieved the award of "socialite".

A brief investigation reveals that here, a "socialite" is someone who has 25 "friends". I had already been surprised at the number of people in my "friends" list, but I was amazed (and a little bit dismayed to be honest) to then find out that out of 80 odd THOUSAND of us, there are only 8 who have this number of "friends"!

NOW, if I had more ego and naivete I'd be feeling pretty good about my "exceptionality", but a brief and very cursory evaluation of my overall score/number of posts made, and the utter failure of my "film night" here, paints a very different picture, especially when the nature and duration of my back channel chats with some of these "friends" is also taken into account.

There appeared to be a contradiction to me between how sucessfully I interact on the forum with others and my abnormally high number of friends, which I decided to resolve by inviting people a lot less often, and considering incoming request more carefully than I did at the beginning.

It has not worked as expected, and now I am (apparently) 4 new "friends" away from earning the "CELEBRITY" status badge notification doo-hickey.

This is just surreal. Especially as I feel that my presentation and interactions with people have gradually become less nice and positive overall, to the extent that I've been trialling winding down my participation, and building a vision of me quietly leaving this forum, when the time seems right. (I'm not seeking a reaction, and wouldn't mention my plans in that regard except that it highlights the paradox of having so many "friends" but actually by other more reliable metrics, it can be seen that I am not actually a particularly popular poster here!)

I won't really get anything out of being awarded the "celebrity" badge except more cognitive dissonance, and it kinda looks inevitable based on past performance if I stay here long enough, SO I'd like to use the feature to do an experiment with this site.

I'd like five "false friends" to apply, so I can get the badge, and then remove themselves quickly , so that I can see if I LOSE the badge again.

I just want to know if it works that way...

UPDATE: I have the badge!! Now it's time to lose a couple of friends and see if it goes again..Just take a quick screenshot...

Opportunity! If you are in my friends group, and wish you had not joined so quickly, here is a very good opportunity to leave in a way that won't be in the slightest bit hurtful... There must be at least someone who has done that.

(As the tally wound back towards a single digit he wondered if that was quite the right approach... :c)