Un-friending Facebook 'Friends'

I set about the business of deleting 'friends' off Facebook today.

By this I don't mean that I am that arrogant to have people be so disposable to me. By no means do I think of myself as 'popular' or so full with friends to be able to delete people thoughtlessly or effortlessly. In fact its one of the significantly harder things for me to do, because people are THAT important to me. Try as I may, I can't remove people from my life. But, I quell my anxieties with the thought of '...its just Facebook'. Facebook is not life (yes we beg to differ), and it shouldn't be.

Its just, these were mainly friends of my younger brother, those 13 year olds that spam my newsfeed with game unlockings, and requests, who chain-add me for who knows why (chain-add: when one friend adds me, followed by a slew of other friends from the same social circle mass adding). So happened I learned my lesson one day when one kid's parent, sent me a message asking me where her son was, because I am Johan's sister. Woman, don't you know where your own son is?

I also mostly deleted friends of my older sister, or older sisters of my friends, or friends of my parents that I somehow, accidentally accepted. I say accidentally because it was a step of "click" followed by an "oops". Followed by placing these people in groups and blocking them from my wall and posts.

Its not that I have anything to hide, I can always self-censor easily, its more like I know there are people that are not as accepting to the kinds of nonsense my friends say. Its an act of self-protection so things won't backfire or get blown out of proportion. So, a greater delete of church members go, and requests unaccepted.

I also learned another lesson when a church member found out I blocked him. He found out because our mutual friend was able to comment on my post, and he saw that he couldn't. He wasn't mad, he just pointed it out in the most disparaging way that only seems to add to the intensity of the slight 'hurt'.

Somewhere between the "H's" and "J's" I began to realize, how many unnecessary people we 'acquire' in our lives and how many we can so readily let go. Like the ex-boyfriend of your best girl-friend that you only accepted because he was the then, boyfriend. Then they break-up, and you see no reason having him there anymore.

There are so many people in the list that I don't even like, let alone see on a regular basis. My then response to the people I didn't like was, I'm accepting you, so I can regularly view your profile and judge you. But I'm leveling-up in life and I don't want that to be that person anymore, I'm going to be a better person. So 'delete'.

Then there are just those people you forget, maybe some of them failed to make an impact on your life, but it probably wasn't that they are forgettable, its just because there's just no chance for remembrance. Maybe it was time or distance or any other combination of factors. But they were not spared as well, and 'delete', because the mantra is, if there's always second chances to be better friends, I don't have to have you here for now, but its just for now. Its not fatalistic.

As a general rule, if it takes me more than 3 seconds to remember who you are, I should delete. Because if you really are my friend, there wouldn't even be the question of "er, who is this again?" But even with a 'general rule', its a preferential treatment system depending on so many factors. There are people that you would probably never see again, but you keep them just because you like them so much. There are those that you think will be potentials, that you must definitely keep. Then there are some that you think would be good to have, because you never know what you'll need- like the friend that constantly posts the best music links, quotes, the best random information/news clippings/ articles etc.

Yes, it sounds bad to have friends based on what they can give, but they've built their Facebook profiles upon that image and providing that kind of service. Doesn't mean I love them less if they didn't have these qualities, its just you know some people are more useful than others. This reflects life.

Then of course, there are the best friends. Those I love too much, and those that love me back the same. Funnily enough, even if I accidentally removed any one of these as 'friends' on Facebook, it doesn't even mean anything. There's always the laugh of 'oops sorry accident!' and the 'add-back', and it wouldn't change a thing.

Thanks for sticking around guys.

I delete people off Facebook periodically to de-clutter my life and clear my head. I just finished a long research paper due at 5 p.m. I typed the last word at 4.40 p.m.

Printed it out at 4.45 p.m. rushed to uni, made it in time. Swear again and again that I won't do it again, but I know I'll be swearing the same thing again the next time around. Again.

Much love,