Except....
I still want to pull back a bit. I want to pare down. And I don't know...is there a polite way to unfriend somebody? I mean, we do it all the time in real life without really worrying about etiquette. All you have to do is stop talking. Easy. It's the making time for people that takes work, anyway.
But something about actually deleting them off a screen seems harsher, even if I never talk to that person in real life. Maybe it only feels that harsh because they can tell I'm doing it. I've done my fair share of reassigning people to nebulous categories in my IM programs. "Ha, shows you, person who probably wouldn't even care what I'm doing if you knew, you're not in the 'Buddies' category anyMORE!" (Despite the presence of my mom's genetics, I'm not the sweetest person you've ever met. Nicest thing somebody ever said to me regarding this: "Yeah...sweet doesn't really do it for me.")
And what happens when I maybe start talking to them more, and want to friend them, and now they're getting a friend request, although they previously friended me? Or what if they think I'm still off Facebook and then they see me post on a mutual friend's wall, and try to write to me and can't? Awkward.
Maybe I should restrict my account to former classmates/co-workers and some other people I don't see on a regular basis. Hm.
The return plan is clearly still a work in progress.
1 comment:
Suzanne, dear friend, my dear, don't take this the wrong way but
take a deep breath and step away from your brain because
YOU'RE OVERTHINKING. Like, WAY TOO MUCH.
it's FACEBOOK.
Right now I am feeling admiring of how you give so much thought to even the little things. A thoughtful life is a good thing.
But sometimes thoughts can be like a bunch of hyper dogs on long leashes that make yipping noises run around you, the dog walker, (general you not specific YOU) in circles until you're all wound up and then you fall over.
There's no polite or impolite way to go about friending or unfriending somebody on facebook. You just do it. And there is so much noise on facebook that there is a 90% chance that whoever you just unfriended isn't going to notice that you're not showing up in their newsfeed, and that now they have 258 friends instead of 259 and then go through their friends list and ferret out exactly who dropped them until they realize that it was THAT DASTARDLY SUZANNE who unfriended them, and then they will feel so sad offended that you unfriended them and hate you forever and not be able to go on with life.
I promise it doesn't really work that way.
Once I unfriended somebody and he did notice and called me out on it. And we had an, "Aw, we really DO mean something to each other!" moment, refriending happened, and it was sweetness and love.
If you want to get back on facebook, get back on facebook. If you want to smallerize your friends list, smallerize it and don't feel like it's a big deal because it's not.
My personal criteria for facebook friending is this: If we have had at least one meaningful conversation where we have talked about God, calling, life, or something like that, where there was some honesty and genuine sharing involved, or if we have shared some significant or meaningful experience, I'll accept the request. Otherwise, I deny it. So far, it's worked out well and nobody has hated me for it.
As for "restricting [your] account to former classmates/co-workers and some other people [you] don't see on a regular basis", you can do what you will but I personally don't think it's the answer you're looking for. One of my favorite aspects of facebook is the potential for sharing inside jokes--as you mentioned. Hey look, a great Hermione flair--Suzanne will really dig this. Oh, you're quoting the song that I listened to the other day! I'll quote the next line and we'll both get a smile out of it!
Does this strengthen relationships and bless each other? I think so!
Or how about looking at photos of that event that we both participated in, or of your great vacation, and commenting on them? You could argue that before facebook, we would have sat down on the couch and looked at them together. But would we have? In a perfect world, yes, but in my real live life the answer is an emphatic "no".
In the end, it's just facebook. Do with it what you feel like doing and stop being in agony over it. :)
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