The Personal and the Political

I lost a few friends this election season. First time it's happened, and I'm not altogether sure how I feel about it.

One of them I cut loose. She was someone I'd hung around with in junior high and hadn't heard from between then and me joining Facebook. I didn't feel it was much of a loss to let her go when she used her status update to swear about how a particular political candidate shouldn't be allowed into a particular town.

Sure, it was my candidate, but it was really the choke hold she wanted to put on political speech that made de-friending her an easy choice. Of course, the fact that she only ever used Facebook to tell people how cute her kids were helped too. I mean, cute kids are cute and all, but I want to talk to grown ups.

The other two are a little weirder. This is a couple with whom we've usually gotten together a few times a year. We still don't have much in common except history, but that's always stretched far enough for everyone to have a good time.

I'm not even sure what happened, really. I can tell when it happened, because with my memory for numbers, I could tell when my Facebook friends count dropped. I assume it's the election, because I've always known they were conservative and, really, what else has there been for the last several months? But I don't know what the trigger was.

Did I mock too much while watching the debates? Was adopting Hussein as my middle name for the duration beyond the pale? Or was I just part of an unbearable anti-McCain, anti-Palin tide? Was it something I did, or was this election somehow even more contentious than even 2004?

I'm not likely to find out anytime soon. I'm not the only friend they dropped, as word is that "no one" has seen them in ages. But it doesn't stop me from asking.

What happened?