SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi

For those of you who use Facebook, I have a question. What is your criteria for decided who stays on your friends list and who goes? I have a few friends that I’m debating on removing. The ones in question were my friends in real life for ten years plus. At one time I was very close to them all but one ghosted me and the others the friendship ran its course. Logically the proper course of action would be just to dump them all but it feels wrong for some reason. For context I haven’t spoken to any of them in well over a year.

I had gathered a bunch of "friends" who I "knew" through forums like this for other common interests, the kind where you don't care if you're anonymous like we do here. I did become closer to some than others, the kind I'd meet up with if I happened to be in their area, the kind where we private message quite a bit. But many were just people that had a common interest, and were just kind of barely acquaintances - eventually, I had no problem dropping them from my list. Am I ever going to see that person in real life again? - that's one of the questions I ask myself before keeping or dropping from the "friends" list.

I had gathered a few people I became acquainted with at work, although my original intent had been to NOT add people from work. When they left the job, the reality was that I was not likely to see them again so dropped them.

If I ask myself why they're on my list and I'm not really sure, that's a good reason to me to remove them. However, I am fairly choosy about who I'll add in the first place.

I have friends on my list that I haven't spoken to for over a year (your example) that I'd never consider removing so I guess that's not my criteria. I'm the sort of person that has a number of friends who can just suddenly fall into a conversation, picking up from nowhere for a minute and then we might not communicate for quite some time.

I would say I have some people where our friendship probably did run its course and maybe we are done but I keep that thread intact just in case. It's still nice to hear how they are doing or what they are doing even if I'm not heavily involved in their lives. If you really don't want to hear how they're doing / what they're doing, drop them.

I’ll say this gently because I’m not trying to offend anyone.

I agree with the above… If you don’t know why you are still friends online with them, go ahead and delete them. Some people like to keep their circle smaller and more intimate with people they actually interact with. I’m trying not to offend but I have known others that have thousands of friends and I think there’s no way they know these people. Usually the ones I have found that have the humongous following friend anybody and everybody and it’s almost like an attention type of situation. However, sometimes people do have business associates or own a business and have that following and that’s totally different. I’m just talking about people that just randomly friend everybody. I recently cleaned up my friend list, and a couple of them had like 2000 friends, but these people were always posting pictures of themselves trying to look a certain way and it almost felt like they did it for the likes that these strangers would give them. I ended up getting rid of a few of those people because if I wouldn’t tell them about my life then why have them there.

I keep people on social media because it's a great way to keep my networking circle big. You never know when you need their help or can help a friend by pointing them in their direction for a job opportunity, rental opportunity, etc.
JMHO. Besides, it doesn't cost you anything to just scroll past them on your page.

Thank you all for your insight.

I feel silly for even asking the question. On the one hand, I’m hurt that they essentially ghosted me which is why I wanted to remove them. At the same time I feel like a bad friend for considering it. I know there’s bigger things to worry about than something as mundane as this and can’t understand why I’m struggling with it.

At the end of the day, it social media. Not real life. Keep them or not - that's only a decision you can make.

With me - I tend to think of it as if this were an old school address book would I cross their name off? If yes - do it. If no, don't do it.

Just because they are still on your social media friends list doesn't mean you have to interact with them. And just because they are not doesn't mean you can't.