Facebook and being "de-friended"

riverjib

Does anyone else take this a little personally? I shouldn't...the girl in question hasn't been my "real" friend in over ten years. We became FB friends, but never even exchanged pleasantries. I'm not the annoying type who updates my status daily, or says anything offensive. I'm the innocuous type who only checks in periodically, which is why I was surprised when she didn't show up on my news feed, despite remaining friends with our mutual friends.

Am I right to be a little upset by this? Or should I accept that some people periodically "prune" their friends lists and delete those who aren't actively part of their real/FB lives?

Personally, I hide people who are annoying, and only delete them if they message me with advertisements or perpetual invitations to events I clearly cannot attend. Otherwise, I just keep them there...to me, "de-friending" people sends the message that I am actively discarding them from my life.

nicole loves chris

I'm basically like you, hide the annoying people and forget about them. But lately I've been realizing that the people that I went to 2nd grade with and haven't seen since don't really matter, and they don't NEED to be privy to my personal details. I suppose I could limit what they see but I'm lazy and removing as friends will be easier if I ever do a friends cut type thing. I don't think you should take it personal though, who knows her reason for removing people? It could be the privacy thing, maybe she doesn't know how to hide annoying people... you never know. I don't think defriending someone is a slap in the face though... and if you hardly noticed anyway, why does it matter? Let it go. =]

saschaduran

When people I haven't spoken to in over 10 years friend request me and never even write a single message to say hello I assume they only friend requested me to be nosy.  

Sometimes I delete them and sometimes I don't.  Depends on whether or not they ever post anything interesting.

JadziaDax

Don't take it personally. I delete people left and right. If it was a close friend i'd be upset and ask about it, but if she hasn't been your "real friend" for ten years, you're not missing much.

riverjib

Thanks! I don't post anything so personal that I'm worried about anyone seeing it, so I guess I don't think of FB that way. I don't treat it as a personal thing, either, so I've probably been de-friended before this and not even realized it. I treat FB as an extended community, and I pay little attention to it for the most part. This was a rare time that I actually looked for an old friend, and realized that I had to "add her" to view her profile. Ouch! It wouldn't hurt so much if she wasn't the type that had over 1,000 "friends."

Oh well. We all view life differently, I suppose. To me, it's all about making connections and keeping them intact, superficial or deep. To others, it's all a game :-)

vegasgroom

I have about 70 friends on FB, they are all either people I see, talk to or correspond with regularly, or they're high school friends I want to keep the lines of communication open with for reunions, etc. (all my college friends I'm either still friends with or don't care to keep track of since I went to a 45,000 person university).  Anyone I'm not really friends with or who don't fall into the high school category I either ignore or de-friend because I'm not a FB friend accumulator and also I sometimes post things for status I would not want people who aren't friends in real life knowing, like I'm going on vacation so come break into my house, etc.  I have all my privacy settings configured so none of my info is visible to friends of friends.  Some of my real life friends have 700+ FB friends, it's crazy, I get friend requests from friends of friends I shook hands with once in a bar, I'm like wtf.

akhensley81

Yeah, don't take it too personally. Every few months, I go through my friends and delete people I never talk to. It's not a personal thing, I'm just trying to keep it "clean."

I used to just defriend the annoying people... and discovered they're also the ones who will notice and write you wondering wtf happened. So I've started just hiding them so I don't have to deal with it. Hehe.

amysmomma

I regularly prune my list too.  I only keep people on there that I regularly talk to, because I have some personal details on my profile - like pictures of my kid, that I don't want just anybody seeing as well.

arbolita

I don't think you should take it personally either unless you are defriending/being defriended by someone you talk to frequently or see on a regular basis.  Honestly, prior to facebook, you wouldn't give it a second thought if you stopped interracting with those people because chances are you never would have reconnected with them in the first place.  So you're not losing out on any sort of friendship you would have had otherwise. 

golden1215

Having been on FB for almost 6 years now I can def say I delete people all the time that I dont actually keep up with.  I'd have 1000+ friends if I didnt keep it down.  Dont feel bad, just think of it as one less person you can photo stalk every few months. :-)

danieliza1127

If you've never even exchanged a "hi how are you" with her, and you aren't a regular user, I wouldn't take it personally.  I know for me, I don't like to be "friends" with people who I only knew in HS or college and who rarely post anything.  It just makes me feel weird to know they're reading all my status updates and seeing all of my pictures but I'm not knowing anything about them or what they're doing. 

I guess I don't understand having hurt feelings over someone you weren't really even friends with anyway.  You have to keep it in perspective.

superherogal

Yeah, I wouldn't get all butt-hurt over it. No biggie.

I delete people all the time, and sometimes for no reason at all. It's the circle of FB.

LesPaul

Yeah, I take it personally.  But - I take almost everything personally.  I do get a little offended when someone de-friends me, and I rarely de-friend others.  Oh, well.

arbolita

If it really bothers you, maybe you should think about interacting with that person instead of quietly stalking them.

ThePinkSuperhero

I de-friend and I've been de-friended.  And of course it's personal, but it's not mean.  If we're not friends, we're not friends, no need to pretend for Facebook.

rak123

I wouldn't even notice if I was de-friended by people I don't talk to.

I recently went through and dumped a bunch of people off my FB friends list.  If I don't talk to them, why shuold they know details about my life?

JenO24

its FB not the real world.  why should it be taken personally?

TurtlesAllTheWayDown

I don't get the big deal about deleting people from facebook because it's just facebook. It doesn't matter how many people you have. It's not like you have to send them all a Christmas card. I think I've deleted two people, ever, and it's because they kept inviting me to events out of state, every week. When someone deletes me, I do automatically think I offended them.

So you CAN be hurt over it (you can't control that), but she just has a different perspective than you do. As PPs mentioned, not everyone feels the same about FB. It's just a social networking site, not the end of the world.

Belle2Be

In Response to <a href="http://forums.theknot.com/Sites/theknot/Pages/Main.aspx/wedding-boards_etiquette_facebook-being-de-friended?plckFindPostKey=Cat:Wedding%20BoardsForum:9Discussion:489da0a4-1284-46f3-b514-910656199016Post:c345e95d-e7db-4800-992e-0d8e029c96ab">Re: Facebook and being "de-friended"</a>:
[QUOTE]If it really bothers you, maybe you should think about interacting with that person instead of quietly stalking them.
Posted by arbolita[/QUOTE]
Haha this made me laugh.

OP, if it bothers you, figure out why. Did you want to be more included in their life? I'm a pruner of inactive people myself.

Meaghann17

It annoys me when I feel like someone is adding me to be nosy, as pp have said. I am less likely to add these types of people but then I start to feel bad and worry they will notice.

Recently I had a girl add me- hadn't spoken to her in years (probably last time I saw her was grade 9 or 10), figured if I saw her out and about I probably wouldnt even say hi. So I deleted her and her annoying updates. Well she re-adds me, I accepted out of guilt (as I said worried I would offend her), then I notice her updates have ceased. I figure yay maybe she has realized no one cares what her and her boyfriend are eating for snack. So I go to search her name and she has deleted me lol. I suspect she was trying to "do it back" to me.

JenO24

meaghann - retaliation facebook style, too funny!