When a friend unfriends you on Facebook
Facebook–you either love it or hate it. For me, joining Facebook was something I was loath to do for a long, long time. I was still in school when it was in its infancy, back when you needed a .edu email address to join. Prodded and nagged by my friends, I resisted, with the quite reasonable excuse that working and attending class full-time left me no time to dodder around on the internet. Several years later, I gave in, but I resolved to do it my way: I didn’t add my maiden name to my account because the people I knew and liked from high school already knew my married name. I had no interest in reconnecting with random lab partners and bullies from junior high. I only added former co-workers, not current ones. And I only added relatives whose company I actually enjoyed.
Of course, I slacked a little on these rules as time went on, but for the most part, I’ve kept my account limited to friends and family. Despite this, I had two friends unfriend me within a few weeks of each other. Although it happened over a year ago, I still think about it every once in a while. The human mind has a wonderful ability to reopen old wounds again and again, doesn’t it? I saw them commenting on other people’s statuses, so I knew they hadn’t deleted their accounts. It was just me. What had I done?
I went back and examined all of my statuses, looking for any clue as to what had made them decide I was suddenly expendable. Was it the rant about the woman sitting next to me on the bus who wouldn’t budge when I had to get off? The angry words about the co-worker who decided to take a personal call in my office? My unabashed love of Hello Kitty? What hurt most was that, in the hierarchy of Facebook friends, these were two women who I had been quite close to at one time. I discovered the unfriendings prior to a vacation to Japan and, although it sounds silly, it put a damper on the trip because it kept popping into my mind. “Why would Kristy unfriend me? She’s the one who posts irritatingly vague status updates all the time. I should have unfriended her! And Emily, well, why she thinks anyone is interested in her political rants is beyond me!”
The more I thought about it, the more I realized–I didn’t really like these women anymore and I hadn’t for a while. In fact, we had completely grown apart. Facebook was serving as a life support system for friendships that should have died a long time ago. This was precisely what I didn’t want to happen with Facebook and what I went to pains to prevent, but clearly I had failed. Before they unfriended me, I’d find myself rolling my eyes at their status updates. Kristy posting yet another “artistic” photo of herself (narcissist!). Emily writing seething, hateful diatribes about Barack Obama. (I think no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, hateful diatribes are always a social faux pas.) While I had found my place immersed in academia and living happily in the suburbs, Kristy represented the worst of urban hipster snobbism and Emily disavowed her intellectual past and all that she once was to mold herself to her caddish husband’s feminine ideal. I couldn’t stand them and they, evidently, couldn’t stand me.
What was bothering me wasn’t the breaking of the ties. It was that they did it first. Even when you’re in a mutually miserable relationship, being the dumper is always preferable to being the dumpee. And while I know all of this now, I still have those moments when this whole situation comes flooding back to me. Having one of those moments today is what prompted me to write this, in fact. This is simply my nature, though. I never remember the good job interviews–I remember the ones where I put my foot in my mouth and say something stupid. I don’t obsess over the 1000 people who follow me on Twitter–I think about the one who unfollowed me last week. And, with Facebook, I don’t think about how I’ve created a nice space for myself with dozens of true friends and family members that I adore–I think about those two jerks who had the cojones to unfriend me before I unfriended them.
How about you? Have you found yourself on the receiving end of Facebook unfriending? Do you have Facebook friends that you secretly can’t stand? Please share!
Mrs. Cox
Receiving end, perhaps, but I haven’t taken notice if I was given the ol’ heave ho. I weed out my friend’s list fairly frequently. Somehow my personal Facebook became inundated with more of a blogging network mix with a blog friend’s friend of a friend of a friend sent me a friend request. After going from close to 400 “friends” down to a more reasonable {though still high} 118 connections on Facebook it is less overwhelming. And I feel better about the people that show up in my feed. They’re entertaining, witty, thoughtful, and yes I may not agree with everything they post but I’m sure they don’t agree with me 100% of the time either. 😉
Mrs. Cox
It is totally overwhelming. I think that’s another reason why I prefer Facebook over Twitter 😉
Ceinwyn R
Facebook is tough for me… I love that I have a connection to the place where both my husband and I grew up and went to high school and to old college friends, but sometimes it is painful because in reality, beyond Facebook, some of those relationships have drifted apart. I mean, I’m pretty much the only one of my college group who is married with a kid…awkward! I think I’ve only unfriended a few people though, and one was after being inundated with annoying status updates and I STILL couldn’t figure out who the person was, even though we went to school together.
blueviolet @ A Nut in a Nutshell
I hardly even use facebook and I feel so out of the loop, but I would absolutely unfriend anyone if they unfriended me. Of course, since I don’t use it, I wouldn’t even know if they unfriended. LOL
Jessie
I have never unfriended anyone but I should. I sometimes notice them my friend number goes down though but I have so many people hidden (I guess that is my “unfriending”) that I would never be able to know who they were. Not that I have a lot of friends to begin with I just don’t pay that close of attention.
dannyscotland
It does stink when friendships that were once important are ended. This didn’t happen on Facebook, but it hurts just the same. I was friends with a woman I met when I was first teaching. We became inseparable and were very close for several years. I supported her through a lot of different events, including her son’s surgery, a difficult pregnancy, and a bad car accident that required several medical procedures. I thought we were friends. Then I moved to another state to get married to my husband. Even though we lived out of state, we got married in my hometown. She didn’t come to the wedding because she says she had a bad hair day. Okay. So I moved on from that, which was annoying, but whatever. Then I got pregnant with my first child (she has 4). She was invited to the shower. She never even responded to the invitation. Not a call, not an email, nothing. Then, months later, I got an invitation to “friend” her through Yahoo. I emailed her and told her just how much she had hurt me by her actions, and said that if she wanted to try to repair the friendship, I would give it a shot, but I was not willing to allow her to hurt me like that anymore. Her response? That I should just ignore the friend request because she just wasn’t “a good enough friend”. And that was it. Over the months, I have wondered if I was ever important to her at all. It hurts because I really thought we were friends at some point, and now i wonder if it was all just fake.
I understand how that Facebook unfriending can nag at you; this nags at me, too. I think, how could I possibly have meant so little to her? But apparently, the only person important to her is herself. How sad for her. I try to tell myself that she is just sad and count myself lucky, but I admit, I miss her sometimes. I miss the friendship I thought we had. It’s such a shame, really.
I’m sorry that those girls hurt your feelings. I hope that you, like me, have truer, better friends who can help you to move past their meanness.
Vivian
You’d really wonder why some people whom you thought are your “friends” would “unfriend” you. But I think Facebook is now more on building connections, not genuine friendships.
Lorie Shewbridge
I haven’t unfriended or been unfriended yet, but I only friend people that I really know or that I have formed a relationship with through blogging.