The Enemy Request

Have thought of a great new feature for Facebook – the Enemy Request, which as the name suggests, is kind of the opposite of the Friend Request. I’ve even thought up a verb for it – instead of “friending” someone, you could “enemize” them. Like the Friend Request, the other person has to accept the Enemy Request for it to work.

The Enemy Request could be used for various different categories of relationship and have different purposes, for example:

a)      You could enemize someone with whom you have a kind of Cold War relationship, and with whom you would like to become a little warmer. Through the enemyship (that’s enemyship, not an enemy ship like in Star Trek) you could go through a series of procedures that would enable you to iron out your differences and bring you a little closer to friendship.

b)      You could enemize someone you’re currently having a heated row with, or maybe someone you’ve broken off a relationship with. You want to get back on good terms with them eventually, but… only after you’ve both let out all your anger at each other. This would be a good alternative to “defriending” completely and blocking them from contacting you on Facebook.

c)       Or you could enemize someone you just can’t stand, have no interest in getting back together with and want them and the rest of the Facebook world to know about it. You could hurl virtual sticks or smoke bombs at them or poke your virtual tongue out at them from time to time. Well why not. 

Unlike Facebook friends, Facebook enemies would not be able to view much personal information on each others’ profiles, only very restricted details. This could be customized, of course, depending on how much you would like your enemies to see.

For a) and b) at least, the acceptance of an Enemy Request would open up a whole new section of the profile in which enemies could call up a series of steps or levels that they need to pass through in order to improve or reconcile their relationship with each other.

So with a) for example, one step would involve a quiz in which each partner had to answer a series of questions about what they feel about their relationship with the other or what they would do or say in certain situations with the other. If they answered the questions in a constructive manner, they would move to a new level and their relationship would improve. This could be shown with different colors of stars or a rating. Finally, the enemies might start to understand why they have been unable to get on and actually turn their enemyship into a friendship.

For b), steps or levels might involve letting the other person know how much hurt or unhappiness they have caused, for example, or understanding how much unhappiness one has caused oneself. The important thing would be to let all the bad feeling out, while ensuring that the other partner actually has to read about it and understand it to get to the next level. This of course would only work if both parties really wanted to improve the relationship. Once again, there would a quiz or questionnaire to ensure that people really understand the issues.

For c), well – just a section with a bunch of virtual rotten tomatoes and the like would do here I think. It is probably likely that the two parties will not want to get back together if they choose this option. Well you can’t help everyone. But if this idea takes off, remember you read it here first!