I love facebook. I really do. I love connecting with old friends. I love keeping up with friends in different cities. I even love keeping up with what’s going on with the folks I see on a regular basis. As a matter of fact sometimes, especially on days like today when we really didn’t see each other before 10pm, I get more information about Marshall’s day from facebook than from actual conversations. Some would argue that that’s not a good thing. I think it is…we did at least communicate. Without facebook or texting, we probably wouldn’t have connected at all today. Sad, but true.
BUT…I have one big gripe with Facebook. Well, not facebook, but my own “internal facebook ethic”.
Here are two scenarios that grate on my nerves:
1. An old “friend” from high school sends a friend request. We weren’t friends in high school. I knew you…you knew me. (Seriously, it’s a small town…we all knew each other.) But I didn’t talk to you and you surely didn’t talk to me. So why do you want to talk to me now?? What is it that I can offer you? Are you just curious about where I ended up? Are you checking to see if your predictions about me came true? I’m sure you heard that I got my boobs “done”. Are you checking to see if it’s true?? (The answer is yes, btw. But not the way most people do it.)
2. An old “friend” sends a friend request. I accept. Then (s)he proceeds to send you message after message after message. (S)he comments on everything you do. (As in my previous posts…if you think I’m talking about you, you’re probably wrong. I’m not talking about anyone that I know regularly reads my blog.) I get to the point where I wonder why in the world I accepted the friend request. Silly drama from years ago pops up. Stories I’d long forgotten(on purpose) are now back in my “sphere of reality”. And sometimes (s)he just plain out annoys me. But I can’t un-friend you. I can’t. See…I look at your friend list, and you don’t have that many friends. And I know that if I do un-friend you, you’ll notice. And I don’t want to be that mean.
And then I start to wonder am I that mean? If I want to un-friend you, but don’t…is that like thinking someone’s ugly and not telling them? Or wanting so badly to say something negative about someone, but not doing it because you just shouldn’t. Is it wrong to think it if you don’t say it?
P.S. IT ALSO DRIVES ME A LITTLE BIT NUTS WHEN PEOPLE YELL AT ME IN ALL CAPS ONLINE OR IN TEXTS. PLEASE STOP USING CAPS UNLESS YOU’RE TICKED AT ME. I AM SOMETIMES NOT SMART ENOUGH TO FIGURE OUT WHETHER YOU ARE YELLING OR NOT. PLUS IT’S JUST HARD TO READ, ISN’T IT?
OMG! It’s me! You’re talking about me! (hee hee) 🙂
ok, that was just really REALLY funny. and have i shared my un-friend story? can’t do it here, but i’m happy to share. 😉
Girl. I have to admit that I have become quite the un-friender these days. Facebook has taken the meaning on the word to places it was never meant to be & I have just recently started trying to regain it’s real meaning – at least with people that fit the descriptions you gave. Happy un-friending. I KNOW YOU CAN DO IT! Yes, I was yelling’but not because I’m mad 🙂
I feel the same way. I wonder why they want to be my friend especially when the weren’t in real life, in fact they picked on me in school and tried to make my life miserable. Sometimes my curiosity gets the better of me and I accept to see what they have been up to.
I have had purging episodes where I delete people who I don’t talk to. Especially on Myspace, on FB I have kept my friends down to a small number.
Sometimes (ok, many) I think “old” “friends” add me just to find out why I have a funny last name…a few of them have actually unfriended me when they figured out I married a non-pale man. So, I completely understand your pet peeves. Another problem I ran into is when one of my brother’s childhood friends added me…I was ok with it until he started making snide remarks about my causes (refugees, child brides, various humantarian stuff). Then I figured out that none of my “friends” should make me angry and want to avoid them on fb…so I unfriended him (my only thus far). And, oddly enough, my brother ignored his friend request–apparently old deeds do indeed come back to haunt folks.
I couldn’t agree more!! I just unfriended 8 people last night and I feel so much lighter. 🙂