This won't hurt much…

It’s not personal at all. But that is the problem.

As you can tell from this blog I am not too worried about keeping an active online presence. I prefer meeting people face to face (not sure if the feeling is always mutual). I am not cool or hip, I am not setting trends or catching a trend before anyone else. I might have a few things to say but the rest of the online world seems so busy talking that no one is listening anyway.

On Facebook I used to “friend” anyone who had a remote connection to me. I even played those Zynga games (Mafia Wars, some kingdom thing, etc) and that made my friend list bloat out of proportion – but as the games got boring fast I was stuck with this cavalcade of friends from who knows where. As I looked through the hundreds of “friends” I had made over a few years I realized I hadn’t spoke to most of them in that time, and had blocked their updates from my News Feed. Usually this was due to no meaningful content and a lack of concern for their news on my part. That isn’t a friend, that’s just a random person whose name you know.

So the cleanup began. I tried to be fair and only remove those who were not obvious real-time acquaintances. But as I went through for a second and third run I started to wholesale remove people I have never met in person, or who I rarely if ever spoke to. Then it was people I never had any socialization with outside of work or organizations and groups. I have always respected the people I find who post regular updates but have their friend list under 50 people. It means they likely know every person on their freind list, have their phone numbers and even spoke to them in the last month or two. When they post something on their wall they genuinely want all their friends to see it.

Eventually I paired my list down to a quarter of it’s original size and expect to go further. Then I started getting the irate emails: Why did you un-friend me? Well if this was the first message I received in 2 years I think the answer was clear: why were we even “Facebook friends” in the first place? The truly awkward emails came from a coworker. I like them as a person but we never did anything outside of say “good morning” or just be in the same room earning a living. We never shared much of our personal lives with each other, I didn’t know her pet’s names or if her parents were alive. We aren’t friends, we’re coworkers. I don’t see any option for adding to a coworker list, and I am keeping my friends list for friends. I did suggest we could hang out some and become friends but I didn’t get a response to this offer. Maybe it’s because I am a married man and she is single? In any case she clearly wasn’t my friend and didn’t want to be.

So if you found yourself removed from my friend list or I denied your request, don’t feel slighted. If you want back on my friend list then lets be friends in real life and eventually you can appear as a friend on Facebook.