Unfriended

I've enjoyed being on Facebook, I really have. Reconnecting with people I haven't talked to in over 30 years is particularly fun, though one quickly realizes that sometimes people from your past are best left there. While there are some irritating things about it (I'll withhold comment for now on the whole privacy issue), there is one in particular that I hate: realizing that at some point, someone "unfriended" you.

I'm not one of those who likes to "friend" nearly every person I've ever come in contact with (and even some that I haven't), meaning I'd like to think that whatever connections I make are reciprocated. I've realized on occasion that I hadn't seen updates or pictures or whatever from someone, only to go to my friends list to send them a message and realize that they are gone, having severed our connection. It's not quite offensive, really, but does make me feel a bit bad. Are my updates/pictures/inane ramblings that annoying? Did I not really mean as much to you as I thought? Did I do something to offend you? These are the thoughts that might run through my head. It really just seems...well, rude I guess. It's like telling someone you'll call them and then not.

I have noted some people are very self-serving, and really a bit conceited on Facebook; usually I find this behavior in women. Some of them fish for compliments, and usually get them, particularly from guys who probably had a mad crush on them in high school and probably still do, at least in that wistful "I wonder what life would have been like had she only said yes to that date when we were juniors" sort of way, likely exacerbated by the latest nag from the old wife who is tired of his crap. These "look at me and how awesome I am" women are quite annoying, and I have, myself, unfriended them so I don't have to see the juvenile and pathetic antics.

Oh shit. No, that's not why anyone unfriends me, I just know it.