I read an interesting and brief article this morning on the WSJ about defriending (“Why I Defriend the Old-Fashioned Way“), and how the author thinks it is a cowardly thing to do on Facebook. He thinks defriending should be a “face-to-face,” or at least performed in an honest, straight-forward manner. He says that when you defriend someone on Facebook, they don’t know if it’s because of something they did, or just because you were purging your friend list. I suppose that’s true.
The author even (sarcastically) mentions Dunbar’s number (which I talked about last January) – the idea that human beings can only handle 150 relationships at a time, and your brain cannot handle anymore than that. That’s probably also true.
However, people amass so many Facebook friends, that I think getting defriended on Facebook is quite a bit different than ending a relationship in real life. For example, awhile ago I was reading a friend’s Facebook status and saw a mutual friend had commented on it. “Oh,” I thought, “I haven’t seen what mutual friend is up to in awhile! I’ll click on her name and check out her Facebook page.”
Access denied.
Yeah. I was defriended. And it wasn’t because I did anything. It was a mutual friend that I barely knew (and through the internet, nonetheless). The mutual friend was probably just purging their list, and decided to take me off. And that is fine. I didn’t mind at all. I found it funny, in fact.
Of course, I wouldn’t recommend defriending your actual close friends, it’s just that Facebook is a somewhat different beast than real life relationships.
From here
So, how do you defriend in real life? That is something that had evaded me. You know, all of these “Start Fresh in the New Year!” articles advise on ending toxic relationships, but how? How do you say to a friend, “I am sick of your bullsh*t and need to end our relationship. You bring me more stress than happiness.” You would have to have a lot of balls to say something like that. I imagine most people just slowly cut back on communication. And maybe defriend on Facebook. Ha.
In fact, this article “How Do You Break Up With a Friend?” doesn’t have many great suggestions – they say to avoid the friend, ignore them (?), and only have a true heart-to-heart if they are a close friend. And even then, maybe just write a one-sided email. Hmm. In the end the article says that letting nature take its course might take care of it as well.
I haven’t had to break up with any friends. I don’t have the luxury of having that many friends! But I find this all very interesting.
Have you ever been defriended on Facebook? How did that make you feel? Or have you be the “defriend-er”? Have you ever broken off a friendship in real life?
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I’m sure I’ve been defriended before and it’s never been upsetting to me (and obviously I don’t know for sure so it wasn’t devastating). Usually it’s from people who I don’t know all that well but wanted to keep in touch with. I purge some of those people from time to time on my own list so I get it. I also tend to get rid of people who post too many status updates that either annoy me or just aren’t important to me from people that I don’t know that well or who I haven’t really spoken to since high school. The only down side to this is that at least one person has noticed that I defriended them and sent me a friend request AND a message saying she thought we were friends on FB before. I added her back so as to not offend….
I had a weird de-friending situation with FB about a year and half ago. One afternoon, I get this weird FB Message/e-mail from a good friend of mine, someone I’d been good friends with for *years*. She writes to me something along the lines of, Well, I hope you have a good life! Clearly sarcastic and upset. I was all, what? So I checked, and we had been de-friended. I emailed back asking what she was talking about (because I *hadn’t* de-friended her), and she accused me of de-friending and was apparently hurt. I explained I hadn’t de-friended her and that, even if I had, it was only Facebook and FB isn’t a gauge on true friendship!
Long story short, she shortly after that stopped replying to my e-mail (trying to make plans to get together)… After a few months, I finally caught on and asked what was going on for her. She basically blew me off with excuses about how busy life was, etc., and I haven’t heard from her since. It really hurt my feelings, actually. I still have no clue what happened.
I don’t care if someone unfriends me on FB. And I definitely go through every once in a while and clear out people I’m not very close to or who might be rather obnoxious.
That is just odd. It’s like she wanted to end the relationship but put the blame on you? It sounds like you are better off without her!
I actually decided to purge fb down to the strict minimum and use it only for family and extremely close friends (actually those friends I don’t need fb to stay in touch with). As for the others, I sent everyone I do care about a message explaining why I was defriending…most understood perfectly. Finally, there are some that I simply defriended because I was never really in touch with them. BUT, for a few days before purging, I actually warned in my status that I was about to do a major purge and that I hoped no one would take it personally. So, that’s how I did it 🙂 …if ever I got defriended on fb, it never bothered me, but it would have if it was a close friend. Like Sarah, I’ve actually had that happen once when a friend and I were defriended and neither of us had done it. But, it didn’t turn into a big deal, we just refriended and that’s it.
I have been a big gamer on fb (former mobwars addict here, lol) so I have defriended as many as 800 in a day once I quit.
Real life is much more complicated. I have passively defriended a couple, but it was the situation where I felt like I was the only one making any effort to keep the friendsip alive. I then simply got tired of it and stopped calling. One of these in particular still makes me really sad, but friendship has to be mutual, and she hasn’t called me once. So I have to believe that she just didn’t have room in her life for me – we’re still fb friends, but that’s as much effort as I’m willing to give anymore.
Oh, I totally hear you on the effort thing. I often say “it’s a two-way street.” One person is NOT responsible for doing all of the “work”! I have one friend who feels bad for never calling the other friend, well… it’s not like the other friend is calling them!
I had a weird, restricted access/de-friend situation happen on FB this past spring. It was the wife of Matt’s (former) best friend since childhood. She was always kind of shady anyway but we would all still hang out, do game nights, etc and then her husband started acting very weird to Matt (ignoring calls, etc) out of NOWHERE.
Well one day, Matt’s sister was staying with us and she mentioned something about the friend and wife having a second baby. She said they had posted info on FB. Well, Matt had not gotten a call and I went to check it out to find I only had access to a limited profile (no wall and only select albums). Matt’s sister logged in and we were finally able to see the full profile…I was floored…it actually takes a bit of effort IMO to single me out to a limited profile status. (I had apparently had the limited view for quite some time)
So in my very mature way I de-friended and blocked both she and her husband; they were not getting open access to our lives if they were going to play games. Matt has tried to call and text several times still to no response and we have written off the friendship (though they sent us a Christmas card???) This whole incident actually hurt us (especially Matt) quite a bit b/c we have NO IDEA what we did. ZERO. We have always (I think) been kind and generous and understanding. We are not drama-laden friends. It seems so weird to throw away a friendship of 20+ years without explanation. Live and learn I suppose.
That is so bizarre! I wonder if the wife is just crazy 🙁 It does take effort to do the limited profile thing! I only do that for the two coworkers I have friended.
Hi, I don’t know you but I just wanted to empathize with you. I have no idea why some people choose to act the way they do. Is it THAT hard to be honest, especially in your case where you have a 20+ year friendship involved?
Yes.
Sad for a second, then relieved when I realized that I wouldn’t have to waste my time on somebody who didn’t deserve it any longer.
I have broke off a couple friendships in real-life. Both because the person was far too toxic to be my friend anymore without destroying the person I strive to be.
I’ve definitely de-friended people on Facebook and I’m planning to go through my friend list again and get rid of more people. There are quite a few people on there that I NEVER talk to and wouldn’t even consider my friends, just.. people I kind of know. What’s the point in keeping them on there if we never talk in person?
Ugh. You know that I’m stuck in this situation IRL.
As for online, I honestly don’t really notice when people defriend me on Facebook (or other similar sites). There have been some people who do and I can understand why so that doesn’t bother me. Sometimes I’m a bit hurt that they couldn’t bother to let me know but, then again, if they’re defriending me because we weren’t really in touch all that much then why should I expect them to make one last effort?
I actually just purged my Fbook list for the first time–meaning I got rid of a whopping five people.
It actually bugs me a lot when people I barely know (like, we had one Spanish class together) friend me and then later defriend me. What the hell, “friend”? Why don’t you stop whoring yourself out and save yourself the trouble in the first place?
Don’t worry, Kim! Our love is beyond de-friending. 🙂
Ha! That is so true. Unless you plan on getting in touch with someone again, I don’t think you should friend them based on meeting once.
Aww, 😀
Ugh. I could probably write an entire blog post on this subject.
I’ll try to make a long story short. My husband has a friend who was close enough that he was in our wedding. This friend’s daughter, who adores my husband, was also our flower girl. His friend’s wife had always been very nice to me, right up until she defriended me on FB.
Turned out she was mad that I (not my husband, but I) hadn’t gone to more of her kids’ events. So instead of telling me so, she deleted me. And instead of answering honestly when I asked her why she deleted me, she lied, several times. And when my husband called her on it, she finally came clean but found all sorts of mean things to say about me.
We are all adults, and I couldn’t believe she chose such a childish outlet for her feelings. The sad part is that my husband used to go over there all the time to hang out, and was part of their daughter’s life. Now, not so much.
I’ve defriended people for offensive comments, or that I didn’t know very well. The above is an example of how NOT to use FB defriending!
There is one friendship I wouldn’t say I ended, but bid goodbye. And another I’m in the process of backing off on. I’d write more but this comment is already a novel! I think you struck a chord with me on this 🙂
Ooo, I do want to hear more. You should write a post!
Not going to her kid’s events? While that does not surprise me, I think it’s ridiculous. Especially since your relationship with her was not the basis of the friendship! It was between the two men!
Whoops, I think I typed in the url wrong and put ‘post’ in place of ‘spot’! Yes, it’s http://supersalwa.blogspot.com/ – I haven’t been blogging as much lately, but please come on by! I do have a few recent posts. 🙂
Anyway, I do have thoughts percolating on the friendship that I’m taking a step back from, so I’m sure it’s just a matter of time before I write about it.
Yeah, I didn’t find her reason for being upset with me valid or rational. WE weren’t friends, our husbands were. But still, if she’d told me up-front, I would have made an effort to explain how busy I’d been, how I wasn’t seeing everyone as much as I’d have liked, and that I’d try harder to make it to their events. Instead, she accomplished the opposite, and neither my husband or I will be in her kids’ lives at all anymore. I think it’s sad, but her choice.
My brother “defriended” me on facebook. That was when I knew he was never going to forgive me. But I think when it comes to the people you barely know, its not so important. I deleted a whole bunch of people from my facebook just a few weeks ago. The way I figure it, if we werent friends in high school, and arent friends now, there is no need for you to be on my facebook. Its like everyone just wants to have 500 friends so they’ll add anyone. Well, I dont want 500 friends. It makes no sense.
As for breaking up with a real life friend, Ive done that. It wasnt a good situation. It was my best friend. She had been there for me through SO much, and it was a super hard decision. But it got to the point where all I was doing was saving her ass, and I never got any thanks for it. Her boyfriend is horrible, he treats her like crap and I was constantly giving her a place to stay when they were fighting. She was going to leave him a bunch of times, but never did. Well, you can only bail someone out so many times before you have to just give up and let them live their own lives. I decided if she couldnt respect herself, I couldnt be involved. I stopped talking to her, stopped replying to her emails, stopped answering her calls. It was all I could do. She knows why. Its sad, and definitely not the way I would have liked things to end up, but thats life right?
I would have done the same thing with a friend like that. When they are with you, it seems like they see how ridiculous of a situation they are in, then they go right back to it.
Things are somewhat better with your brother now, right?
I’ve had a lot of people defriend me on Facebook, but none of them were close friends. There are definitely some people that I’ve lost touch with over the years, but I suppose that’s what happens. I find the 150 relationship max interesting!
I’ve only ever officially ended one friendship in my life and that kinda sucked. Most of the time you just don’t really stay in contact and before you know it a couple of years has gone by. I solved the Facebook friend/defriend thing by permanently deleting my account 😉
I got through my list, almost weekly. I am sure I have been defriended, but honestly, I never notice.
As for IRL friendships, I went through a major purge a few years ago. It was really really hard but had to happen. They were bad for me friendships that had run their course. But it was still hard. After it was hard though, it was easy. And my life was instantly better because of it. Sometimes the toughest decisions are the most difficult.
Honestly, I don’t know that I’d notice if I’d been defriended on facebook, unless it was someone that I was in regular contact with. It’s not something that I stay on top of, and besides, I’m in contact with the people I want to be in contact with anyway.
As for real life, I’ve ‘purged’ several people, especially people related to my previous job. I’m sure I could write you a novel of an email about it, but, once I could finally declare them as not a part of my life (just a mental thing for me) every single day was better. There’s no reason to continue relationships with people who are detrimental to your own well-being. That took me a long time to come to terms with, but I couldn’t be happier for it.
And typically I haven’t come out and said “look, you’re a terrible person and I’m done with you” I’m generally more of an attrition cutter-offer I suppose.
I can’t say I’ve ever had this issue in ‘real life’. I guess I’m just very careful with my relationships and it’s rare that I let someone far enough into my life to be considered a ‘friend’ and once they’ve made it that far, they’ve pretty much been ‘vetted’ lol. Toxic relationships get ended LONG before it would require a ‘heart to heart’. I wonder what I would do if I ever had to…