Friend lists: TROPHEES?

Assalam alaykum

I noticed that many brothers/sister have a long long friend list. I was impressed. Soon I started recieving friend adds myself and I was excited about it, so I started naturally replying back and socializing. Unfortunately, some of the ones I tried to socialize with just did not reply or care. I soon realized that it was a new fashion to have a long list of friends like trophees on a wall. I didn't understand the purpose of that behavior.

Therefore, I wanted to share this thought with you fellows:

Wisdom in islam is defined as "putting things into their context"

A "friend" as defined by the American Heritage Dictionary is "A person whom one knows, likes, and trusts". the english word derives from the Germanic root fri–, which meant “to like, love, be friendly to.”

In latin languages like French Spanish and Italian, the word is ami, amigo and amico respectively. They all derive from the latin amicus which means "to have affinity toward".

It is in arabic though, that the word takes its full splendor. Arabic as you know is a very rich lanaguage, so "friend" has many synonyms in Arabic (about 27!). I will only pick the three most used ones:
sadiq: which comes from sidq = truthfulness
sahib: which comes from sahaba = to accompagny, to stay with
khaleel: which means close friend, the one who gives advice

So we can sum it up by saying that a friend is a truthful compagnion who gives advice and takes it.

I don't make a difference between "online life" and real life. what applies to one applies to the other.

I think that accepting a friend in Muslimspace means accepting at least to INTERACT with him/her. if we de-construct the word interact we find inter and act. Thus it is a BIDIRECTIONNAL (inter) and ACTIVE (act) activity.

I personally think that there are Three levels of interaction:

1. Correct behavior: this is due to everyone. people you like and even people you don't care about. by correct behavior I mean: talk back when talked to, give "basic help" when asked to (directions, helping someone in the street, helping to fill some form etc.)

2. Caring: It is due to friends and family. this already includes being correct, but adds extra care: doing favors when asked to, giving "extra care": ask about them. share their news and advices, give them advices and be RELIABLE.

2. Loving: It includes the former levels and adds two different feelings/actions :
- towards the family (parents/kids): care for what they do, ask about their day to day lives, feel hurt if anything happens to them (everso slight), feel happy to good news (even little news) tell them about things in your life and accept their advice.. and give good, caring, sincere and helpful advice to them.
- towards the husband/wife: since deep intimate feelings and day-to-day life are shared, all the above-mentioned interactions are required plus deep trust and commitment to the other, commonly called "love".

Thus, within this scale, hanging "friends" pictures in personal pages without interacting with them can be called INCORRECT BEHAVIOR.

I don't mean constantly caring about them but at least have the lowest degree of interaction which is correct behavior.

That being said, I judge no one and I don't consider myself perfect, far from that. I'd really appreciate if you give me comments and feed-backs about that post.

let's stop collecting contacts and lets start having friends

This was originally a post in a forum. on a friend's request, I put it as a blog

Assalam alaykum