Unfriend

When I first joined social media - Facebook, specifically - I made a mistake. I friended too many people. I was too excited and wanted to join in on the fun. Instead of letting it happen organically (is that even a thing on social media?), I jumped right into the rabbit hole of friend searching. Everyone was a possibility - grade school friends, high school friends, college friends, tennis friends, parents of my kids' friends. It worked for a while...until it didn't. Here's the funny thing about real life - it often doesn't translate to social media. People who might be polite in person, can be downright rude on social media. I blame the lack of writing skills. Let me stop here and say that I do NOT consider myself a good writer. I can confidently express myself and filter out the negative things that I really want to say. For others, that's a huge challenge. 

Here's why I call my "friending fest" a mistake: I no longer want to share things about my life with some of these people. As I've mentioned before, I believe that posting on social media, no matter the platform, is giving away a little bit of yourself. I do like to share experiences and random thoughts, which is why I'm active on social media. What bothers me is when I run into people with whom I've had zero interaction and they say something like: "Wow, you go out to eat A LOT." It's said in a judgmental tone...to which I take great offense. It implies they're living their life better than I am, which is not true. Have you ever gone out to eat? It's fantastic. You get a giant list of food which you can order. Somebody else cooks it, brings it to you and does the dishes. What could be better? 

Anyway, Facebook has this thing where if you look at it on a desktop, which I do every day, it tells you whose birthday it is. Often, I will see a name that I haven't seen, thought about or definitely spoken to in ages. And then I think: "Why am I Facebook friends with this person when we're not even friends in real life?" So sometimes, I do this really mean thing: I wish them a very happy birthday...and then I unfriend them. 😬 Maybe they love what I post on Facebook, but they never interact with me - online or in person. Why am I giving away pieces of me to this person who I barely know? I will also say that sometimes people reach out privately and tell me they like things that I post. That's really cool and I will almost never unfriend them because they've made the effort to interact. 

I have made some actual friends via social media - a couple of whom I've never met in person. But they interact with me regularly. I used to think it was weird and then I thought of pen pals, which used to be a thing when I was young. You got this name from somewhere - church or a magazine or...who knows. And you wrote this person letters and they wrote you back. Sometimes, you'd meet them in person. Anyway, I consider some of my "social media friends" as digital pen pals. 

I've decided I might become more aggressive about unfriending people. I'm a super sensitive person and I deserve the right to decide with whom I'll be friends - in person or online.