What to do about Defriending people on facebook?

Elfrieda - posted on 05/12/2011

It feels funny to defriend someone at first, but now I even defriend anyone that I haven't spoken to in a while or if they update too often. I try to keep my friend list to 100 people max.
One thing I'd suggest is to make your presence invisible on the chat function. I mean turn it off so that you can see the other people who are on, but they can't see you. That's what I do because one of my friends, who I like in real life, is a really annoying chatter. She wants to message constantly about boring things the whole time I'm online, and I can't seem to shake her off. (She's also annoying on the phone like that, with never wrapping things up and saying goodbye.) We just talk in person! :)
Like some pp's have said, she might not even notice that you've defriended her.

Maria - posted on 05/12/2011

well i defriended my boyrfriends sister n law she was pure drama and we didnt get along i didnt feel bad at all. I would just defriend them whats the big deal its FACEBOOK just do it and dont think about it afterwards.

Christina - posted on 05/10/2011

It's facebook. Unless you know this girl personally (which it doesn't sound like you do) who cares! Get rid of her. I have deleted people for being too "in too" my page, and others for complaining about things I post. If you don't like my page, it's simple~GET OFF. And if you annoy me, I'll remove you.

Stephanie - posted on 05/10/2011

Tah- I want to tell her for her own good, not bc I want to act mean or self righteous, but I'm afraid that's how it would be taken bc this is my husband's sister's daughter and I'm not close to them. I am the only 'white' person in the family and it's kind of been the 'elephant in the room' type of thing with them.

April- No! You are not being arrogant! That is just your heart being sensitive to the feelings of another person, which is a virtue...and rare these days.

April - posted on 05/10/2011

I didn't know you can set FB to block certain people from your news feed, even though they are on your friends list. I will have to try doing that!



I also like what JuLeah said about being an enabler. By pretending to enjoy talking to her, she doesn't know she is annoying to me (and probably to most other people too. Also, by JuLeah's logic, defriending would also be enabling unless I gave her a mouthful (PM ful) of what I really think before I finally defriend.



JuLeah also got me thinking that maybe I was being self indulgent. I was thinking, "Oh this poor girl needs my help. I have to help her." I guess she doesn't need MY help...she must have friends and family in real life? I am arrogant to think that I would be hurting her by defriending her?

Tah - posted on 05/10/2011

She's your niece..say it

Stephanie - posted on 05/10/2011

I want to delete my neice bc of that crap. I can't stand reading 'Im gonna fuck these bitches up' and 'Im getting drunk 2nite'. It literally disgusts me, but I don't want to 'offend' lol. really I just want to say grow up and have some self respect and stop acting so trashy!

Stifler's - posted on 05/10/2011

LOL Jakki, my sister and I both blocked and deleted our other sister from FB because she is one of those people who writes random hostile updates about drama, bitchez, etc. I added her back but my other sister refuses to.

Jakki - posted on 05/10/2011

My sister annoys me on fb with her status updates that are meaningless like "Oh wow I just can't wait" or "Phew what a weekend!"... but I can hardly defriend my own sister, can I!

Desiree - posted on 05/10/2011

i have removed several family members because bad language, Photographs that were less than decent and simply because I am not about to be a hypocrate. Same for some so called friends that I really don't like or have come to dislike.

Stifler's - posted on 05/10/2011

I know people who aren't deaf who type that way. Leaving out ands, buts, thes, and talk as if they're leaving a short message instead of having a conversation and nothing connects to anything previously said. eg.

Me: Hey how are you

Them: went to rodeo so and so said this having lots of fun

Me; Oh yeah cool did so and so go?

Them: Going to bundy this weekend taking dogs and jet ski

Me: Rightio then *goes offline because I can't stand this conversation*

April - posted on 05/10/2011

@ Rebecca, you are definitely not off on that. Poor communication outside of ASL is a deaf culture thing. However, I think there is a little more going on with this girl. I think her social skills are to an extreme that cannot be attributed to deaf culture. Most of my deaf friends will write the way they "speak" (ASL). They generally don't repeat things but the way they write IMs and PM can be confusing. Sometimes I have to read twice before I understand. They have their own shortcuts for words (remmy-- remember) and many don't punctuate (they literally write the way they sign). Sometimes it is like trying to figure out Chinese! This is not to say that NONE of her social skills are because she is Deaf. She ends the conversation the same way : " Are you tired okay bye" and signs off.

K. - posted on 05/10/2011

I do it all the time! Facebook is actually starting to get really annoying in general. If I didn't give a crap about you 10 years ago in high school chances are I'm not going to give a crap about you now. I don't care what you had for dinner, I don't care where you 'check-in' at, I don't care about the funny noises your car is making or if you have a fuzz on your sweater, and I especially don't care about your games! If your frontier family starves and dies, I don't give a damn. I don't give a damn if your plants whither or your digital fish die. If you need a nail to complete your horse barn ask someone else! And no, I will not fertilize you're wilting crops or work in your hotel. ENOUGH!! Sorry, I obviously needed to get that out.

Rebecca - posted on 05/09/2011

Could it be a deaf culture thing? I too have a friend that is deaf on facebook who does almost exactly the same thing.

Since you are obviously way more versed in deaf culture than I, you probably know better that sometimes those who learned ASL without a huge focus on english composition often can seem repetitive or seem to struggle in a forum like facebook.

I did not know this myself and wanted to figure out how I could communicate with this facebook friend better and in person. I also noticed that many of her friends on facebook who requested to be my friend and went to the same deaf school as her growing up..messaged me and had some similar communication issues. So, when I went online I found the a lot of folks asking similar questions about some people who are deaf having some issues communicating with the hearing online.

Please feel free to tell me I'm totally off on that. I may just be thinking about my own situation with my friend.

As far as chucking facebook friends, there is no notice going to them to tell them you dumped them. They may not even notice for quite some time. When she does, if she messages you, just say you've limited your facebook friends to just family and a few close friends. She won't be able to access your profile to tell if it is true or not.

Stephanie - posted on 05/09/2011

If she's making you uncomfortable you should delete her. It's more than her just being a little odd if you're really uncomfortable. I don't know if there's a way to keep people from IM'ing you when they're on your friends list but you can block them from your news feed if that helps. I wouldn't want to hurt someone's feelings so I know I'd have a hard time deleting her but from an outside perspective I will say that you should do what's best for you and not worry about it. Put yourself first.

April - posted on 05/09/2011

I do know her but haven't seen her since I was a little girl. I was probably only 6 years old the last time I saw her. I friended her because we were in a deaf program together. I thought it would be nice to start talking to other deaf people too. We all sort of just found each other recently and added each other. I find that I am able to re-form friendships with some of the others, but not with her. She seems to have a very needy personality and I get really uncomfortable with talking to her.

Jayce - posted on 05/09/2011

I routinely weed out the friends list. The lastest to go was my SIL's husband. No guilt what-so-ever.

Jayce - posted on 05/09/2011

I routinely weed out the friends list. The lastest to go was my SIL's husband. No guilt what-so-ever.

Mel - posted on 05/09/2011

sounds like its not worth keeping her on your list...Im with Jenn do you actually know her? I have had to defriend people and feel guilty, actually I dont usually feel guilty when I do it, I feel guilty when I get sent another request, then another one, then when I block that person and they sent me a nicw little christmas message and pix from sweden...then I feel guilty lol. My reasons for deleting this particular person, when I fell pregnant with my second child my husband didnt want to tell his family straight away and I said fine but I will still be putting it on facebook (none of his family were on fb) and this lady is my husbands bosses ex wife and she saw it and I told her not to tell damos parents as they didnt know yet, and so her husband told damos parents and they stil havent gotten over it and I didnt want to risk the same situation again. Other reason are just people who anoy me in general, the ones with the constant dramatic statuses and bad language, or whos updates consist nothing more of being drunk or stoned and they are mothers, or the ones who add me then never talk to me so I feel like Im talking to a brick wall, if someone doesnt show up to a party of mine or something and they have said they would. Just alot of friends. I cut my list down alot.

Jenn - posted on 05/09/2011

Why is this person on your friend's list in the first place? Do you know them? If not, then why does it matter? Chances are it's a spam thing - that's why it's the same conversation.

Krista - posted on 05/09/2011

I de-friend people all the time! When I first signed up on FB, I was super excited to "collect" friends and added anyone I had even a passing acquaintance with. Now, I figure if I haven't talked to someone for quite a while, and I don't really care what they're up to anyway, I just delete. I go through my friend list every once in a while and do a little "clean up." I'm not trying to hurt anyone's feelings, and the people I delete probably don't even notice anyway, because we were never really in touch.

In your case, delete away! I don't like the idea of people I don't care for knowing all about my business. If she's annoying you, get rid of her!

Keli - posted on 05/09/2011

yeah,there is constant drama on my fb too.i think its worse than Highschool lol

Stifler's - posted on 05/09/2011

I defriend people for going on about shit how everyone is *starting drama* too. Like please, if everyone else is starting drama maybe it's not everyone else.

Charlie - posted on 05/09/2011

Oh Ive defriended people for ignorant , racist , homophobic things too .

Keli - posted on 05/09/2011

i de-friended a fair amount when i was pregnant with my son, i just felt people were nosy and forever critisising, like i put a status that we were painting and getting the nursey ready ,then i had comments and private messges stating i should not be painting while pregnant, on the defense of course i responded with a REALLY No shit,i didnt mean i was painting.my hubby did it while i barked orders on what wall was to be painted what ;) but things like that annoyed me to no end.also i had alot of people adding me when word got around i was pregnant and i felt they were just being nosy... now that the preggo horomones are gone my friend list grew but i still do a cleanup every now and then!!

Jane - posted on 05/09/2011

I defriend people for making racist, sexist, or anti-any whole group statements. Two days ago I defriended someone because he not only rejoiced that bin Laden was dead, he announced that America had thereby declared war on all of Islam. He then went on to spout spurious "facts" to back up his reasoning why the only good Arab was a dead one. I don't need that stuff in my life, so bye-bye he went.

Rosie - posted on 05/09/2011

i defriend people when i don't like their annoying status updates. everytime they start talking about how much their life sucks or how people are "starting drama" every other god damned day and they must go on facebook and bitch about it. irritating.
there is only one person who i want to delete but probably won't, and it's this annoying woman at work. she'll just bug the shit out of me at work wondering why i deleted her. i already tried to ignore her request, finally she caught on and asked me why she can't see my account (she didn't figure out i didn't accept the friend request) and i am to nice t tell her to her face i dont' like her and think she is a annoying old hag who sleeps with too many people that go through her checkout line. gah!!!!
although now that i think about it, 3 people i deleted asked to be friends again, and i accepted. so i guess i am a wimp when confronted AGAIN about it. luckily they havn't annoyed me as much this time around, lol.

Charlie - posted on 05/09/2011

I clear my friends list every few months , I dont need to keep people I dont really talk to or care about what they are up to and yes they are people i know .

Stifler's - posted on 05/09/2011

I defriend creepy people like that constantly. I hate having the same conversation or them being all "I went to school with Damian" as if that makes us friends when he doesn't even know who they are. I do sometimes feel guilty but not really. One guy from my grade who I knew added me and kept saying stuff like "why didn't we ever hook up i always liked you" and I was just like because I don't like you?

Tyrae - posted on 05/09/2011

I go through my friends list every 6 months and weed out all the people I don't talk to. If they aren't close to me as a friend or family and I haven't talked to them in a while then they are removed. I don't feel bad about it anymore, I did at first, but now that I have my daughter and I post a lot of pictures of my family on there I don't need random people seeing my profile. I also have it so people can't search for me, or look at my profile if they aren't my friends.

Bonnie - posted on 05/09/2011

I de-friend some people. People who never talk to me. I hate when it seems like people only keep adding people to their list so their friend's list grows or just to be nosey. I have one I was friends with awhile back and out of nowhere she stopped talking to me. I still don't know why. I have confronting her on Facebook a few times for at least some answers and I get nothing. She will likely be next to go.

I think you should do what you need to do and not feel guilty about it. It's your life and your Facebook.

Holly - posted on 05/09/2011

Teresa - I deleted two of my cousins and my aunt (their mother) because their dog attacked my daughter and they refused to even entertain the idea that their dog is dangerous. No, it's my daughter (who was 5 at the time) who was completely at fault and deserved to have her shirt torn in half by their dog (who was bigger than my daughter at the time). Yeah, NOT! My aunt even went so far as to tell me that she wanted to bring her dog to my house (when my middle daughter was still an infant) to show my oldest how to act around dogs... Ummm, no. We had a dog and my daughter was great with dogs - it was their dog who attacked my daughter (I saw it happen). Now that I refuse to go to family events at their house (and if we are at a family event at another family member's house and she brings the dog we leave - I even kicked her out of MY house for bringin her dog to a family event) apparently *I* am being the rude persona nd causing a rift in the family, but I don't care. My daughters come first. Eh - bye bye! lol

Holly - posted on 05/09/2011

Eh, I defriend people all the time. I don't feel guilty at all. In fact, the latest one was an exboyfriend. One of my friends said tha he was finally stable again (long story...) and in a good relationship, so I accepted when he sent me a request. After that he kept messaging me asking weird questions, telling me how much he missed me and saying how he wished my kids were his... yeah - OUT!!! lol

I also am VERY picky about who I add to my friend's list in the first place. There are literally only a handful of people on there who I haven't met in person and they are either 1) family members that live on the other side of the country or 2) other mothers that I have met here on CoMs who I trust completely. SO, when I do have to delete someone it's for really good reasons (like when I deleted my sister's SIL and MIL because they were attacking me for my political views - that one was crazy...). Becuase it takes big things for me to delete people though, I don't feel guilty at all about deleting them.

Teresa - posted on 05/09/2011

I removed my cousin. I could handle reading all the Christian bashing (though it certainly annoyed me), but when she started questioning my judgement as a mother (when we haven't seen each other in almost 20 years) when it came to doing what is best for my kids.... and being quite rude about it instead of just ASKING me about the situation... especially when everyone that DOES know me was trying to tell her the truth and she was still being a jerk.... Yeah, that was the last straw. No guilt. I don't need that kind of stress in my life.

♏*PHOENIX*♏ - posted on 05/09/2011

Yes I defriend and no I don’t feel guilty
I do it for a number of reasons, but once I hit delete I don’t feel bad, because I do it for a reason I feel is okay, there have been times I deleted some on accident thinking it was someone else with a similar name spelling and later feel bad for that once and/or IF I realized I did it

Toni - posted on 05/09/2011

All of the people who are my friend on facebook are people who I know or have known IRL so I only really de-friend them if they really pee me off with their status updates. The type of people who annoy me with their status updates are the ones who take over my news feed because they update every 20 minutes with innane things such as 'OMG hairdo' and 'I hate ...' 'I love...' etc etc.

If you want to de-friend someone do it, it isn't worth having people who are annoying you as friends on facebook if you don't have to.

JuLeah - posted on 05/09/2011

Why do her feelings matter more then yours? When we lie out of kindness, we are never actually offering kindness, just a lie. If she needs help, she needs to get help. If she has ten people in her life doing what you are doing, she might not think she needs help.

It is not my goal to dump on you nor to sound harsh.

Enabling is never an act of kindness and she might be better off if everyone in her world knew that.

Take care of yourself. When you take care of yourself, you give permission to others to do the same.