S/O You've been defriended - telling them why

[auntmeegs]

It never ceases to amaze me how self-important people are.  When I read something like I feel embarrassed for the person.  Does she think people are actually going to care? 

[Allyson]

I know lots of people who on occasion will go through their friendlist and get it down to a manageable number, so if I found myself 'defriended', and it was someone I had infrequent contact with, I'd always assume this was the reason and let it go. I don't see the point of the 'I'm defriending lots of people sorry if you don't make the cut' messages. I used to see them on Livejournal, too.

Do you guys think it's rude to ask why you were defriended? It's not something I'd personally do, but I could see cases where it might be OK to ask if something was wrong, like if it were someone you saw frequently.

[ilovemykitty40]

Slightly off topic:

http://www.itproportal.com/portal/news/article/2010/1/24/brain-cant-handle-more-150-facebook-friends-finds-oxford-boffin/

The above is a recent news article about facebook friends. The academic claims it is impossible to maintain more than 150 active friendships on facebook, and based on my own experience I can well believe it. I may read through status updates but I only really engage the people who are constants in my life. While I agree that the man with 1000 friends wasn't rude per se, the article above and the way some individuals are all about having massive friend lists makes me doubt his explanation.

On topic, I don't think an explanation is ever necessary. I'm sure I've been defriended by some but since it wasn't anyone close to me, I don't think twice about it. I feel like engaging in this type of behaviour harks bark to school girl machinations, and I would rather forget about those.  

[cbcb]

Related to ilovemykitty40's article - while it's true that the majority of us probably cannot maintain any real degree of contact with much more than 150 people, people studying social connections have long known of the existance of people who are extraordinary connectors - see Milgram's "small world experiment" or Gladwell's discussion of this in "The Tipping Point". There are a few, very rare people who genuinely do "know everyone" or almost so - they know many many people and foster 1000s of relationships. So it's not an impossibility, only an extreme rarity.    And I agree with you overall that the truth of the facebook guys statement is unimportant, as he was offering an unnecessary explanation to soften the blow - it's unkind to call him a jerk for it.

[kingsrings]

I was recently “defriended”, not literally, by someone whom I considered a good enough friend to not have that happen. We were constantly on each other’s walls and private messaging, and we’ve known each other since we were young children. She restricted access to her wall from me. I don’t how many others she did that to, or why. The thing is, if you don’t have access to someone’s wall, then IMHO there’s really not much of a point to being on each other’s friends lists, since the wall is the “heart” of a person’s profile that keeps one up to date on what’s going on in their lives. Basically, I could no longer do much with her profile. So I defriended her. I didn’t announce it to her or tell her why, because I figured that would come across as very childish behavior.

[hot_shaker]

I was recently “defriended”, not literally, by someone whom I considered a good enough friend to not have that happen. We were constantly on each other’s walls and private messaging, and we’ve known each other since we were young children. She restricted access to her wall from me. I don’t how many others she did that to, or why. The thing is, if you don’t have access to someone’s wall, then IMHO there’s really not much of a point to being on each other’s friends lists, since the wall is the “heart” of a person’s profile that keeps one up to date on what’s going on in their lives. Basically, I could no longer do much with her profile. So I defriended her. I didn’t announce it to her or tell her why, because I figured that would come across as very childish behavior.

Actually, you may want to double check.  I think with the latest FB update (increasing privacy settings) a lot of people got accidentally blocked.  I had friends complaining that other friends couldn't view their profiles any longer.  If this person is real friend, you might want to discreetly inquire.

[siamesecat2965]

Ha – I just received a friend request from a classmate a year ahead of me. While I knew of him, we never said a word to each other in HS and were never in a class together as far as I can remember. I was wondering then why he sent me a friend request. I looked at his friend list, and it was over a 1000 people! I guess he’s just trying to pad his list or something. I accepted his request just in the odd chance that he actually might want to view my profile and talk to me, but probably next week or so I’ll quietly de-friend him unless he makes an attempt to have FB contact with me.

 

I had the very same thing happen to me!  Only it was a guy in my class, who I gone to school with from 7-12th grade.  But honestly, I can't ever remmber if we were in any classes together, but I do know we were not friendly - not enemies, just no contact.  I thought it odd that he sent em a request, but since I thought I remembered he was friendly with a good friend of mine from HS, I accepted.  he doesn't have 1000 friends, but I have noticed he friended quite a few women in my class of 500 - he's still on my list, but we don't chat or anything. 

[kingsrings]

I did, listing the reasons you stated. I said that I thought maybe it was a problem on my end. She replied back that it was on her end, and that she had her privacy settings set really tight.

[Longwinded E]

I think the OP is well rid of this very dramatic "friend."  I can't imagine someone actually taking the time and energy to compose a Facebook message about their various evils, etc.  If someone's that terribly upset with you, why not at least call them and discuss the problem? Oh, wait, I'm thinking like a logical person again...

The only person who defriended me with explanation was the recent ex-spouse of one of my in-laws, who very kindly took the time to write me a short message and explain that they weren't doing it because they didnt' like me, but because I was friended with other in-laws who held a grudge and there was some drama swirling about and they just wanted to remove all public connections to the family.  That is one of the few situations in which I felt that it was appropriate to explain a defriending, even though it wasn't strictly necessary to write the message to me, (I would have understood in that situation) I thought it was very nice.  And I don't think I would have necessarily noticed if she'd dropped me and never said anything to me!

There are only a few situations in which it's necessary to even say *anything* at all!

[SisJackson]

I did, listing the reasons you stated. I said that I thought maybe it was a problem on my end. She replied back that it was on her end, and that she had her privacy settings set really tight.

If she hasn't relaxed her settings for you, then in your position I would take this as a virtual Heisman and do the same on my end to her - if someone won't let me in to their life beyond a very superficial degree, I don't feel comfortable sharing more personal things with them.  It makes a relationship too one-sided.

[kingsrings]

Yeah, because after that, she still posted replies to my statuses. I thought that was rather one-sided – she won’t allow me access to her wall, but she’ll read and reply on mine?? But like I said earlier, I ended up defriending her for the reasons stated, so ‘blocking’ her as well is a moot point.

[Bookgirl]

I was thinking about posting a similar thread because several times in the past few weeks I've had friends post status updates saying they were culling their friend list.  While I can certainly understand the need to cull, I don't understand the need to announce it.  I know that there are some people who have defriended me but I don't know when or why.  I didn't take personally; I just figured they were trying to keep their friend list to only friends, not someone they went to school with a decade ago.

In most cases, it just seems like the person is trying to make him/herself feel important.  (I can think of one case where the announcement made sense though.)

Just curious, what were her reasons (generally, speaking)?  Were they more substantial, like, "You stole my husband and kidnapped my dog."  Or more superficial, like, "You won't join my mafia."

Oooooo the bolded sentence drives me nuts. I joined FB to get connected, not play games. In the past month or so I've had to hide peoples statuses, because I would see this....."If you really are a good friend of mine...you'd join my mafia. If you can't be bothered, neither can I!" I think I've been defriended because of this. Not sure totally, but just a feeling.

Oh my goodness!  I can't believe people have actually said that   

I play quite a few games on FB but would never ever defriend someone because they wouldn't be my neighbor on Farmville!   

In fact, I recently posted a PSA on my wall explaining how to hide all of the game updates if someone doesn't want to see them.  I know it can be annoying if you don't play the games but it's also a part of the game play.  It's kind of a rock and a hard place for those of us who do game on there.  We don't want to be overly annoying with all the game posts but at the same time, we want to post them for our other game playing friends to use. 

[kingsrings]

A friend of mine had a great solution for the game playing ordeal: she created TWO FB profiles. One was strictly for wall and personalish stuff, the other profile was strictly for games. That way we non-game playing friends can go to her profile without being bombarded with game playing stuff. She used her first name, middle name for one profile, then her full name for the other one. 

[Scritzy]

Does anyone know, once you have defriended a person, does that person's old replies to your posts still show up? Or do they go away eventually?

[kingsrings]

Nope. Everything they did while they were your FB friend are still on your profile.