So I picked up this blogging thing to bring some clarity to my convoluted mind. It’s helped and I’ve tried to have some fun with it. But having delivered a couple of tirades on a few somewhat controversial topics, the missus thinks I need to dial it back a bit. The missus is ALWAYS right. So as I try to lighten it up, maybe I will even open a window or two, and possibly close a few doors.
I start by saying that I think I am fairly technically savvy, and have come to fully embrace the Facebook experience. I know that that this not for everyone, and not everyone expects the same thing from the Facebook experience. What I find most intriguing about Facebook and social networking in general, is the effect on the human psyche.
Take Friend Requests, for example. Have you ever received a friend request from someone and said, “Who’s that?” So you start poking around their profile, like Sherlock Holmes, looking for clues. It may involve getting out the high school yearbook to see who they “were.” With a little luck you might get to say “Wow, they look really old/fat/bald/gray/(insert physical flaw here)!” Or you swear that they have either had plastic surgery or are only posting really old photos.
So after uncovering enough evidence, you accept their friend request. Or on the flip side you realize you really didn’t like them 20+ years ago, and you deny their friend request. Or maybe you need to do a little more investigating, and so you send a message to a common friend asking who this person is, how you should know them, and should you accept their request? So for the meantime, you postpone taking any action on the request.
Or maybe you hate to disappoint or hurt anyone (or you really want your friends total really high so you can look/feel popular) and accept every friend request you receive. Did I mention I am intrigued by the inner workings of one’s mind?
But lately I have really been thinking about the other side of the friend request, which is “unfriending” or “defriending.” I recently read an article that discussed which is the right term. The best comment I read was that “unfriending” is removing someone from your friends list. “Defriended” is what can easily happen when they discover your action.
Have you ever unfriended anyone? Do you want to, but have not? November 17th was declared National Unfriending Day by late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, who declared that friendship should be considered sacred. I think I was unfriended a few times that day. What’s funny is that I didn’t feel unfriended. No pain whatsoever. I was not really sure until recently when I realized I had not seen much from some friends, so I went to their profiles to see what’s going on. Yep, I was unfriended. I decided to start poking around a little more to see what I am missing. Turns out it was more than a couple.
One was a very distant co-worker that I really was not that close with, had little in common with, and as I think about, couldn’t even tell you who originally friended who. No real loss there. Several others, same story. We’re not friends anymore? Really? Since when? Was it on November 17th? Before then? How dare you unfriend me and I don’t even know it! I’m sure if I really considered them a friend and could remember who sent who the friend the request to begin with that this would be bother me. But, … (hang on, I’m checking) Nope,... Nothing. Question for the class: Am I alone in that I am surprised that this was not the hurtful, horrible experience I expected?
One was someone I went to grade school with, and was “unfriended” since I posted my blog on Religion. Just so happens he was one of the three bears. I guess that when I surmised that no one I know actually reads the crap I post, I was wrong. Well, since he was one of the bears I don’t see eye to eye with, and he unfriended my wife despite a relationship via marriage, I can’t say that I’ll worry about that one much longer than, say, last week.
But, and this is where it gets interesting, two others no longer on my friends list are pastors at my church. (I should add that we have more than a couple of pastor at my church, and these two are husband and wife.) But still, that hurts. Did I offend them somehow and not know it? I typically don’t care too much what others think of me, and it has served me well so far. But unfriended by my pastors? I’ll assume that they still think I’m top shelf, as far as casual acquaintances go, but have taken to the recently popular trend of social withdrawal.
This trend involves reducing your friends list to limit access to your information, and to make the experience more manageable and enjoyable. The way I understand it, each time you log on to Facebook, you unfriend five people until your friends list contains only people you really want to stay connected with. Another approach to the same ends is cancelling your account, going “silent and deep” for a few months, and then restarting with a private profile that no one can see. You seek out the people you really want to communicate with, and friend request them. That is, as long as they also have not also gone silent and deep, rendering them unfindable.
So why unfriend anyone at all? I can think of a few reasons why one might start thinking about it:
1. Constant status updates (once an hour, or more).
2. Pointless status updates, usually going beyond what they had for lunch.
3. Constant game updates and notifications.
4. Status seekers instead of status updaters.
5. They are family, and I really don’t want my family knowing my social life.
The list could be 5 times that long, but you get the idea. My response would be – isn’t it much easier to block their feeds and notifications than potentially burn a bridge? I mean unless you really want to risk pissing someone off and are 110% certain that there is no chance that could possibly review your job /mortgage/loan application/tax return/(insert critical document requiring approval here), why not just cure the symptom instead of the cause. In the end it’s a personal decision, and since Facebook is the ultimate personal web experience, I guess that makes sense.
And now the question, what am I missing?
With that question is an invitation to all my Facebook friends: if I happen to fall into one of the categories on your Reasons to Unfriend List, then unfriend away! Life is too short to surround yourself people that don’t build you up and encourage you to be a better person. If my posts, or this blog, gives you reason to doubt my presence in your personal circle of trust, then I encourage you to vote me off the island. With over 500 friends, I must have pissed one of you off. So feel free to unfriend me and trust that I won’t be offended. No harm, no foul, no problem. No Christmas card or graduation announcement either, but I don’t think that will bother you too much.
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