Middle Class Problems: Befriending tradesmen on Facebook

(Corbis)

It happened overnight. One day, you were on mutually respectful but distant Mr and Mrs terms with your builder, the next, he (or his computer) had invited you (or yours) to be a Facebook friend.

What to do? Decline the invitation and step offensively from respectful distance to standoffishness? Accept, and find yourself in a parallel universe of aluminium butt hinges that you would otherwise avoid?

The next day, nothing is said. Does Mr Skilton even know he extended this invitation, you wonder. Or is he simply too diffident to mention it? The following day, a prompt arrives. You must act, and press ACCEPT. You are now conjoined with Mr Skilton, whose first name, you discover, is Wayne.

Your relationship with Wayne is, in a sense, already unusually intimate: he is privy to your phone calls, pet incidents, hand-washing, teenager tantrums and loo-roll shortages. Now the tables have turned. As his Facebook friend, you know Bolton Wanderers' most recent football results and that Brightlingsea hit form to beat Basildon in the darts superleague – although there is scant mention of wife Charlene.

Until the holiday snaps: Wayne and Charlene sipping caipirinhas in Copacabana, Wayne and Charlene buying leather goods on Praia de Botafogo, Wayne and Charlene doing the samba.

You would be pleased for them. Except that Wayne told you he was sick and couldn't carry on with the loft conversion this week. In revenge, you launch a blog. It's called "Where's Wayne?" And you post the link on Facebook.