You haven't bothered to copy off important contact data to some personal file? That's crazy.

You wake up one day wondering what happened to Bob, then slowly realize that you'll never see him again. It's a weird feeling.

True. OTOH, when that has happened to me, I realize there's a reason for it.

At 54 I find that a) life is not only short, it's shorter than you think, and b) there's a whole lot going on right now that dwelling on acquaintances lost to the past is probably a waste of time.

[B]y the way, my wife and I are having a competition to see who can get the most friends.

Seems we're very different people, so my anecdotal reflection likely as alien to you as yours is to me.

If you'd like to make it about me, happy to do that. My email is in my profile.

That wasn't my intention, but your post was about you and how you use FB. Just as my response was about me and how I (don't) use FB.

I'm curious to know, though, how anyone can know if they are an average FB user. I know a few people who use FB and they all seem to use it differently. I wonder if each of them think they're an average FB user too.

God didn't come down and carve the Approved And Valid Contexts of Facebook Friending on a piece of rock.

Unless you're older, you have no idea how true this is. So many people I knew in college and this happened so frequently once I got out college. I suddenly realized people at that age are so nomadic. They move frequently, change addresses and numbers and unless you're best friends with them, you'll never know what happened to them.

Scary and yes, very weird to have known someone one day and then a few days later, they're a ghost to you.

I think that's the key here. Smart phones which you use like a database.

If you had that when you were 20, you might have hundreds of contacts in your smart phone today. People rarely change both emails and phone numbers at the same time.