Everyone has their own philosophy when it comes to Facebook friending. Some are quite conservative with letting people into their virtual worlds, while others may “friend” every single person they met in the bar on any given night.
I believe I fall somewhere in the middle. I won’t friend everyone I meet or accept every friend request I get, but I am more liberal than many of my real life (RL) friends when it comes to “friending behavior.”
For example, if someone friends me and I don’t know them per say but we have a lot of friends in common, I usually accept. If I meet someone and we really seem to connect or they are someone I can see myself developing a RL friendship with, I will friend them.
From time to time, I get teased by my family or friends for having what they consider to be a large-ish number. I tell them it’s because I have lived and worked in several different states, and as a result, have met a lot of people from all over our 50 states with whom I wish to stay connected.
Now, I don’t think of my “number” of friends as a status symbol, personal affirmation of worth or a mark of my popularity in the world. So I don’t care WHAT the number is. But that doesn’t mean I don’t KNOW what it is. Exactly what it is. At any given time. Maybe there are some hidden, narcissistic implications in that, but I really don’t care. I’m not going to waste precious minutes with my therapist talking about “the number.”
Anyway… Over the years—since I know what the number is at any given time—I also know when I have been… (gasp)… dumped. Perhaps some of you have also experienced this. I can’t be the only one who kinda keeps track. Right? Please tell me I’m not alone. You look at your friend list from time to time and notice that the number is smaller than before. It isn’t everyday and it is usually only by one or two at a time. But still you can’t help but ask yourself: “I wonder who the one-time-friend-turned-traitorous-@$$hole is who dumped me?”
I have never tried to find out. I am aware that there is an app for this. An app for seeking out the bastard who ditched me, casting me carelessly to the curb alongside the information superhighway and right into the roadside weeds of the world wide web. But I have never wanted to waste the energy trying to find out. I mean, the higher your number, the harder it would be ferret out the little $hit anyway. Not worth the effort. Not that I haven’t wondered who it was.
In recent months, however, I have quite serendipitously learned the identity of 3 of the perpetrators. The first was in just looking for the guy. He was an old (RL) friend of whom I decided I wanted to ask a question. I typed in his name and he was gone. Just gone. I checked my friend list and he was gone. I checked mutual friends’ lists and he was gone from there too. And YES, I did a little digging into the matter. Long story short, he dumped Facebook. And YES I suddenly felt a little bit better about myself and this particular minus-one.
The second one I like to call Teflon Travis (not his real name) because I had a notification that he had commented on something that I had previously commented on and whenever I clicked on it… I got bounced right back to my own homepage. I “bounced” myself a half a dozen times before I figured out that I’d just been dumped. Another check of the friend list confirmed my suspicions.
The third one was, to me, the most shocking of all. I was reading an old “note” I had written (much like a blog entry) because that was where I used to keep my writing before starting this page. And this person, I’ll call her Disappearing Delores, used to LOVE my writing (at least she said she did). She was always one of the first to comment and made such funny contributions. She and I would go back and forth with several “comments” to one another at the end of many of my notes.
So in this note that I was reviewing, I noticed that the old comments were ALL mine and there were NONE from her. Another quick check of the friend list (I was getting good at this) and yes… she was gone too. And my comments looked so sad and silly like I was having a conversation with an imaginary friend. I would start many of them: “Haha. How true! And you know, Delores… Blah. Blah. Blah.” I didn’t cry or anything. But yes, I wondered where she’d gone. She’s still on Facebook… I guess she just didn’t want to be my friend anymore. Bitch.
I wonder what I did to piss her off? I know that’s why I dump people… because they piss me off. And that’s pretty much the only reason. I wonder if the people I have dumped ever wondered why it is that I dumped them? I guess we’ll never know. All we dumpees can do is pick ourselves up out of the weeds, dust ourselves off and move on. Just us and our now-smaller number of “friends.”
I know what you’re thinking… Maybe it’s not such a bad idea for me to spend a few precious minutes with my therapist talking about “the number” after all.
Woman In Thrisis 
Love it!! Wonderfully written, as usual! I look forward to your blog everyday – thanks!!
Thank you Jaime! I’ll try to keep them coming! Thank you for being a faithful “reader” 🙂
I look at my number from time to time, but I can’t remember it therefore I Have probably been “Dumped on a number of occasions without knowing it… Hmmm now since you bring it up, What Did I Ever Do TO Them. Bunch Of Ingrates, Fine be that way ahem…sorry Great Post!
Thanks JT! I know, right? Who the hell DO these people think they are unfriending us when we’ve never done anything TO them!?! Hmm?
Hey there Friend,
Have you ever been reviewing the “People You May Know” section and seen someone you thought was on your friend list? The problem with this is do you try to friend this person again?
Hey Tom! Thank you for stopping by and for commenting! I saw you subscribed the other day and I was so excited!! I have noticed that before people who you thought were “friends” but they show up in your “suggestion box”… What to do with them? I usually leave it. I figured they must have had a reason for dumping me so I won’t try again. Sometimes people have re-friended me b/c they got hacked or signed off FB altogether and started over. What do you do?
Poor girl…Very easy to ID with this since all of us on FB experience it at one time or the other. From one who has been “around the barn” a few times, I simply don’t have the energy to care. Like me or dump me…whatever. I’m in it for the GAMES!
Aha now I see where your daughter gets her saucy attitude 🙂
Yep JT. I got it from her. She probably kicks herself from time to time too 😀
Ahhh to be at that “age” where you can tell everyone to go you-know-where if you don’t feel like dealing with them! Maybe in another 14 years or so I won’t care as much??
Maybe…but I doubt it 🙂
Ha! I cull my facebook friends on a regular basis, using such criteria as, Have you interacted with me in any way in the past six months? No? Dumped. Oh, we went to highschool together! Did we ever speak? No? Dumped. If I ran into you on the street, would we make plans to do something? No? Dumped. One day I dumped everyone who was in any way connected to work, because I realized I wanted to bitch about work on facebook. (I’m sad to say I did dump an actual friend once because of her constant status updates about all the “cute” stuff her baby did. Drove me mental.)
It’s not that these people have pissed me off at all, but I put personal things on facebook, and honestly, I only want my real friends on there, not people I met a couple of times or friends of friends or whatever. Any time my number gets over 85, I have a little audit.
When I get friend requests though, I have a hard time saying no, so I always accept and then delete myself later.
I definitely know what you mean about wanting to “vent” sometimes on FB and if you have a lot of friends from lots of different places you have to edit yourself a lot more. I too have wondered about the audit and I know a lot of people who do them regularly. I guess it all depends on how we want to use facebook. And yes, it IS hard to say no. Delete is always a later option 😉
I noticed I was “dumped” by someone right before reading this! My first thought: Who the Hell WAS it? I NEED to know.
I know, right? Who do they think they are? Where do they get off dumping us!? Sorry you got “dumped”—I’m sure they were an idiot.
Thank you for stopping by, reading and commenting! I do hope you’ll come back! I was so happy to stumble across your blog today. I’ll be back there for sure.
Nice post! FB is very much like high-school again, which is the last experience I want to relive. So I wrestle at times with the entire concept, particularly when people post tons of stuff, but never comment on anyone else’s content. I think myonepreciouslife has is right, some people want to actual be themselves on FB/share personal things and sometimes not everyone on your list can handle the real you (for me, this is my extended family). Other people do nothing but fluff and religious posts – so they’re fine with having a bazillion friends. Jealousy also plays a part in who stays friends with who, some people just can’t stand other people’s success/talents, and with your blog – you’re probably a prime target for this.
Hi there! Thanks for your nice comment. That’s a great point that FB is like high school. And yes, people use it for so many different things in different ways. I can honestly say that the people I have “dumped” were actually just people who always commented on my posts but they were negative and even mean at times. And these were supposed FRIENDS that I crossed paths with a regular basis. It’s different on here to possibly encounter someone with an opinion contrary to one’s own but I am putting it ALL there for the public to read so that can be expected. But “friends”… now that is another story. Thanks for reading! Have a great weekend!
Ummmm I think I just peed (not really) a little laughing so hard at this. Loved it, as always 🙂
I had to come back to this post… It seems this minus-one Facebook phenomenon has spread to other networks. This morning I realized I lost a subscriber here on WordPress and IMMEDIATELY scrolled through trying to recognize the missing name. My exact first thought when I realized what I was doing was this article – “Me and my damn minus-one.”
How funny! I totally know what you mean. I noticed a minus-one on here the other day and I immediately wanted to ferret out the little rat. But I still have no idea who it was. I’m glad you liked this though and could relate! Did you ever figure out who it was?
No, I didn’t. And they’re lucky, whoever they were…. 😛
I know what you mean! haha 😉