Defriending: do they know?

[Scritzy]

Forgive me if this topic has been answered. I have't gotten to read all the FB posts.

I got a call today from a girlfriend I haven't seen in years. She told me she had separated from her husband.

I had friended her husband on Facebook a few months ago. I sent him an invitation, which he accepted. It hasn't been a highly active friendship, i.e., never PMed me or even posted a comment to anything I wrote.

Now, after hearing some of the cirumstances of the situation, I feel inclined to defriend him. But if I do, will he know about it? I mean, will he get a notice that he's been defriended? I know if he looks through his list of friends, he will see that I've gone, but he has so many other friends he might not miss me. It's not as if I'm the only one.

And do you think it's rude of me to drop him?

[Hushabye]

He won't be notified if you defriend him.  You'll just drop out of his newsfeed and he won't see your status updates.  If he ever searches for you or looks in his friends list, you'll show up as someone he hasn't friended or, in the case of his friends list, not at all.

[MaggieB]

SouthernSugar is right, he won't get any notification, and it's possible he won't notice at all.

And no, I don't think it's rude to defriend him.  A lot of people "clean house" periodically and defriend people  they don't speak to regularly.

[Lisbeth]

No, it isn't rude to defriend people whom you don't have contact with.

As PPs have noted, Facebook doesn't send out notifications that someone has defriended you; their names just stop showing up in friend lists and news feeds.

[Scritzy]

Okay, good. Thanks for the info.

[Hushabye]

Forgot to answer your etiquette question.  Like PPs said, it's not rude.  I just went through and did a quick cleaning a couple of days ago.  I'm sure the people I defriended won't even notice.

[Animala]

Just so you know, the helpful friend suggester may tell him by having it pop up as a suggestion. 

[Scritzy]

Just so you know, the helpful friend suggester may tell him by having it pop up as a suggestion. 

I hate the helpful friend suggester.

[BatCity]

Agreed on all counts.

I had something similar happen a few months back, only it was my brother's (now) ex-wife.  She left very suddenly and moved across the country.  They have no kids, and while I liked her when she was family, well, I thought it best to cut off ties to her.

So I waited about two months, then quietly defriended her. 

[ACBNYC]

If you're uncomfortable with defriending someone (which is not rude in and of itself, of course) you can take advantage of your privacy settings to block some or all of your profile from particular people.

In your case it sounds like defriending is the way to go, especially since you weren't close to begin with.

[Scuba_Dog]

Is defriending the same as blocking? 

[Lisbeth]

Is defriending the same as blocking? 

No, defriending means removing someone from your friends list.  Blocking means adjusting your settings, such as wall-to-wall and E-mail capacities, so that a given person can't post on your wall, send you E-mail, see your news feed, etc.  It is possible to block someone without defriending them.

[Scuba_Dog]

Is defriending the same as blocking? 

No, defriending means removing someone from your friends list.  Blocking means adjusting your settings, such as wall-to-wall and E-mail capacities, so that a given person can't post on your wall, send you E-mail, see your news feed, etc.  It is possible to block someone without defriending them.

Interesting!  Thank-you.

[Scritzy]

I considered blocking him, but I'm not going to bother as long as he doesn't start bugging me. And I don't think he will.

[Ceallach]

Somebody defriended me recently.  I only noticed because it is 1 person from a circle of people I see regularly, and when I was on the Facebook page of "Sarah" I noticed it said we had 4 mutual friends instead of 5 mutual friends.  So I clicked to see who they were.  And then I realised that "Luke" had defriended me.  (I searched for him again just to be sure).

I actually felt a little gutted that he hadn't said anything to me.  Nothing had transpired to lead to this that I could think of. I still see him regularly amongst the others.

But I think it's different when it's somebody you have good reason not to want to associate with.  Yes, he may notice, but if you don't know each other well he probably won't mind.