Wednesday, November 17, 2010

What Happens If You Unfriend Your Only Friend? Are You Friendless or Are You Free?

I heard somewhere that today is National Unfriend Day or something. Facebook users are supposed to pare down their friend list and get rid of the unnecessary bulk.  This topic is extremely timely as I have found that I have recently been defriended by a few people.

Now, I do not particularly care if someone defriends me. Except maybe my mom, although she is not on Facebook.  Okay, maybe my brother, my husband, my best friend, that would be sad.  Random people that I reconnected with, but haven't really talked to much? I take no offense.  Time is short. Life is hard. Facebook is full of posts.  Although in my defense, I don't post a lot. Wait. Maybe I am boring people?

In any event, I typically only notice I have been defriended when it is someone that posts a lot and then all of a sudden they stop.  No, they didn't stop. They are still posting endlessly on Facebook, I just don't get to see it.  On to the next 100 posts from friends and family.

But you know what is strange? When you get defriended by someone who only has one friend on Facebook - YOU.  Seriously this just happened to me. Actually, I don't know when it happened because you are not exactly notified when your friendship has been deactivated.  I will pretend it just happened.

So, I am going through my old facebook messages and I find one from this friend that I invited to Facebook. That's right, he wasn't even on Facebook until I came calling. Better yet, I was his only friend. That was a bit strange.  You know what else is strange?  He would post things to his wall, news articles and tidbits and I realized, as his only friend, he was posting directly to me!  Was I supposed to comment on every thing he posted? Why did he think I wanted to read articles from the Wall Street Journal? Was he trying to tell me something?  I guess now I will never know.

You know what is stranger? He is still on Facebook. Without any friends.  Yes, I have been defriended by someone who would rather have no friends than be my friend.  It is like he is the king of Facebook, but he doesn't have any subjects.  

Facebook = bringing people together, tearing them apart, and killing all self esteem.

Now who can *I* defriend??




5 important things being said:

Jennifer said...

That is pretty bad. I wonder why he defriended you? Maybe because you never post and he felt like you were spying on him? But then again, if you don't read his updates, no one does. How sad.

sprinkles said...

I worked with a guy who I thought was a pretty good friend. We worked in two different departments together. Then he moved to a different department and we kept in touch via email once in awhile. And then all contact stopped. He even defriended me on facebook. I tried to send him an email once and commented about him defriending me but he never responded back. So I guess it's safe to say he and I aren't friends anymore. I was kind of sad about it at first just because I thought we were good friends but then I realized we obviously weren't if he can't even bother to keep in touch so whatever... I'm over it.

Sarah said...

I HATE getting unfriended on FB. It's like a punch in the stomach even if it is by someone you haven't seen since kindergarten and would avoid if you saw them in real life. Who needs the rejection? I just checked my friend list and nobody unfriended me on this day of paring down FB friends. Whew!

Jenn said...

I think I'm weird when it comes to defriending, especially on FB.

I've gotten quite picky about who I add to FB. It's my way of having at least one place that isn't a completely public broadcast of my life on the internet. I've recently gone through and deleted anyone I haven't met in real life or planned to (read want to) meet. So if someone unfriends me, I guess I assume the same, or that they just don't really care about what I have to say (and honestly, do I want that person to be my friend?)

This particular person that you mentioned though, well, that's just weird. Why be on FB?

*~Dani~* said...

Jennifer - apparently I bored him, or ignored him. I don't know?

sprinkles - I hate when that happens. You will find better friends, I know it!

Sarah - I agree! I just found another one today and the only reason I thought of her is because I saw an advertisment for her boutique which is near me in the paper. Then I found she defriended me. Well, guess who WONT be shopping there, missy.

Jenn - that is probably a good way to go about it. I feel bad about defriending people, but there are people that I am friends with that I really don't care about. Maybe in the new year I will pare it down. It actually doesn't bother me when I am defriended because it is not like these are close friends by any means.

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