Have you ever been unfriended by someone on Facebook, and actually realized it’s happened? I did, and I was hurt. I noticed my friend’s husband’s brother, deleted me. Yeah, we’d only seen each other once in the last two years but I was still offended, you know? I quizzed my friend and she said ‘Don’t take it personally Jord, he was just doing spring cleaning.’ What? Spring cleaning is throwing away old trash. Umm, yeah, that’s personal.

Now it feels like he’s an ex-boyfriend. I really hope I see him soon. I don’t care if I look good or not, I just want things to be going really well for me on Facebook. I’d be like ‘Hey Ben, sorry I almost didn’t see you there – I’m just so swamped with all my Facebook friend requests. I don’t even have time to add anyone these days. OK, gotta run!’

Feelings aside, I understand why he did it. A few harmless clicks of ‘Add Friend’ and before you know it, your friends list is a mixed bag. I recently hit 762 friends on my personal Facebook account, and felt like I’d lost  control; close friends, family friends, friends of friends, work colleagues, ex-colleagues, friends I haven’t seen since Grade 3, friends I wish I saw more, and friends I know I’ll never, ever see again.

Up until now I’ve been too afraid to delete anybody because I’ve got really bad FOMO. My fear of missing out has always stopped me. I have some Facebook friends I don’t even remember. Some of them even post updates in other languages and I have no clue what they’re saying. But I can’t help but feel that the moment I delete them, their next post will be ‘Bonjour… Free Peugeots to all my Facebook friends.’ I just know it.

But I knew it was time to stop, asses, and try to cut down. It’s never easy because whether you give it or get it, rejection sucks. And if you think about it, Facebook gives us all the options and alternatives in the world to prevent us from ever having to follow through with the unfriend process. We can hide photos, posts and activities from friends, we can unfollow friends so we don’t see their updates in our News Feed, and we can make it look like we’re offline when we’re really online.

When I started scrolling through my 762 friends, I asked questions like… ‘Should I delete you if: We don’t speak? You never LIKE my photos? You over-post inspirational e-cards? You post too many scrambled egg pics? You bore me with political rants? Your Candy Crush scores are clogging up my News Feed? If your Twitter and Facebook accounts are linked so every single tweet is also posted on your wall? Ugh. Or maybe it’s not about you, and I’m just overwhelmed by statistics?’

After hours, and I mean hours, of deliberation, I deleted four friends from overseas who I have zero contact with. I don’t feel better yet, but I know it was the right thing to do. My Q+A for each case for unfriending explains it all.

Have we had any contact over the last three years? No.

Will we have any contact over the next three years? I doubt it.

Aside from our names and profile pics, do we actually know anything about each other? Not at all.

Have I ever LIKED your posts, or have you LIKED mine? No, never.

And the biggest question…If you start LIKING and commenting on my photos and updates, will it change the way I feel? No.

Being friends on Facebook is very different to being real-life friends. We all know Facebook is a time-waster; an innovative, addictive, can’t-imagine-life-without-it style time-waster. It sucks up hours, days, weeks and weekends.

I understand this, and I’m totally OK with it. But if I’m going to lose valuable time to social media, I want it to count. And life’s too short to have a News Feed filled with content I don’t want to click on.

I know I have additional spring cleaning ahead because I have more Facebook friends who fit the Q+A criteria above. Truthfully, I think it’s better to unfriend people and be transparent, than stay connected to someone on my personal profile who is, in many ways, a complete stranger. So I’ll use this opportunity to apologize to any of my remaining 758 friends at risk of being unfriended. In some cases, it’s inevitable… Unless you offer me a free Peugeot. That could change things.

Posted on 5/22/14

Jordana Borensztajn is a comedian, corporate speaker and self-confessed iPhone and social media addict. Right now, she’s online with two windows open; one is her Facebook friends list, and the other is Peugeot’s website. She likes to be prepared. Tweet her any time at @JordanaOZ or hit her up on Facebook. 

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