I was on facebook (which I’m not THAT fond of, but I find it to be a means to an end for me) looking through my old message logs when I realized one person defriended me. I normally wouldn’t give that much of a damn except that the situation surrounding me and this person is very complicated, and it could mean any number of things that I am even less equipped now to find out since I can no longer see past certain filters. That’s fine really, it’s her choice, I just hate being in the dark.
Then I came to ask myself, “what exactly is a friends list on these social networking sights anyway.” On my other blog, I always viewed it as simply a reading list. I do know some of the people I call friend from the shadows of the net at one time or another, but really, it’s just a list of people who have interesting things to say that I enjoy reading.
Then I came to look at my own friends list and thought “I don’t really know half of these people, they are just ‘friends’ by association.” That was also before I learned how to jack up my privacy settings and lock interlopers and random searches out. I asked myself “Am I really friends with these people, when was the last time I talked to them.” I then made a systematic effort to do some pruning. It was a tough call at some points. I do like some of them, but I never see them and never talk to them. I also never felt that much of a kinship with them to justify keeping them on regardless of that (like I did with some of the others).
I realized that that is the way for hundreds of people (and implies something…sad if this person is the same way and I still get defriended). They accumulate friends and friend requests from meetings and never really think about. Some people usually just accept such requests because they are too polite to say no. Sometimes they barely knew the person but wanted to know them better, sometimes it was just viewed as a “you are my friend now, here is the proof” kind of deal.
I just wish it wasn’t her though, I mean, it is her choice and I respect that, but this makes a complicated situation I thought was resolved worse. I can think of several possible reasons why, but nothing definite. It’s best to put it out of my mind and go forward, it’s all I really can do.
ETA: Upon looking at things later, it seems…different from a simple defriending. It’s like her very existence has been purged. I don’t know if it is an account deletion or just really REALLY not wanting me to know what she is doing, but I don’t THINK the privacy settings go THAT high (nor is she so obsessed with getting rid of me that she would delete anything I might potentially see that relates to her…heaven help me if she is though).
