{"id":48386,"date":"2022-01-17T10:28:55","date_gmt":"2022-01-17T15:28:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48386"},"modified":"2022-01-17T10:28:55","modified_gmt":"2022-01-17T15:28:55","slug":"the-subtle-arrogance-of-unfriending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/?p=48386","title":{"rendered":"The subtle arrogance of unfriending"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

To my knowledge, short of third-party plug-ins or software, it\u2019s not easy to really know when the people you know on social media unfriends you.\u00a0 Maybe if you don\u2019t have a generally high number of online friends and a pretty good memory, one might be able to notice the lack of a name or three in their respective lists, but for the most part, it\u2019s not something that\u2019s pretty easy to do, at least in my estimation.<\/span><\/p>\n

I like to think that I don\u2019t have a tremendous number of online friends, but it still encroaches over 100 people.\u00a0 That said, it\u2019s still easy to not notice when some names might not be present anymore, which seems to really be the only tell of when you\u2019ve been unfriended by others.<\/span><\/p>\n

Recently, a friend of mine sent out a group invitation for their wedding.\u00a0 I hold this person in very high regard, so I will most definitely be making the effort to go to the wedding, in spite of it being numerous states away and will require the logistical efforts that go along with parenting young children.<\/span><\/p>\n

As we have a number of mutual friends, out of curiosity I clicked on the members tab to see if I could get some hints to the people I may be coming across at the eventual wedding.\u00a0 As expected, I saw quite a number of familiar names and faces, and felt a modicum of excitement at the idea of finally getting to see some people after many years and pandemic-related reasons for being unable to connect for a while.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then I noticed something: next to some of these names that I thought I was already friends with, were +Add Friend<\/em> buttons.\u00a0 Now unless I\u2019m missing something here, that means to me that I had been unfriended by these particular people.<\/span><\/p>\n

Obviously, if I\u2019m expending the effort to brog about it, I am taking it probably more personally than I should be, but honestly?\u00a0 It\u2019s hard for someone like me not to, because in spite of distance, time, or general lack of maintenance, these are people that I still consider friendlies in life, and at the very least would enjoy knowing the feeling is mutual enough to warrant keeping as friends status on their fucking Facebook pages.<\/span><\/p>\n

I know that I didn\u2019t unfriend them, because I don\u2019t ever unfriend people, save for some pretty extreme circumstances.\u00a0 In fact, I remember the last time I unfriended someone, and I regret doing it because I felt that I was pressured to do it and didn\u2019t really do it on my own accord, but the circumstances were pretty extreme.\u00a0 But usually if my opinion on a Facebook friend sours, or I\u2019m just tired of the shitposting I think they do, then I just perma-mute them, or snooze them for 30 days at a time and repeat it every month.<\/span><\/p>\n

Just because I don\u2019t always like the stuff they post doesn\u2019t mean I don\u2019t think of them as at least acquaintances, because everyone is different in person than their online behavior indicates.\u00a0 Outright unfriending people, at least to me, there\u2019s an air of, I no longer wish to care about you any further, and that is kind of a shitty sentiment to pass onto someone else.\u00a0 Maybe I\u2019m making a bigger deal about this than I should, but it\u2019s definitely some food that my mind has been thinking on for a day.<\/span><\/p>\n

There\u2019s also something subtly arrogant about unfriendings.\u00a0 Because I like to think I know the people who have unfriended me well enough to be able recollect instances in the past where they\u2019ve made posts about their intentions or acts of doing unfriending sessions, and up until the cuts where I didn\u2019t make it, I could be subconsciously pleased that I was thought enough of to remain alive on their lists.<\/span><\/p>\n

Regardless, the act of unfriending either comes off arrogant and\/or is examples of recency bias, because it makes me think the people doing them think highly enough of themselves and their number of internet friends to where surfing the news feed is such a chore that they need to cull down the numbers to better filter the shit they want to see, as opposed to the shit that comes from their supposed friends, regardless of if they really want to or not.\u00a0 Or, I feel like I\u2019m getting cut, and people they\u2019ve never met, or people they hardly know, remain, because they need constant attention, and don\u2019t need a silent lurker like me to occupy one of their precious 5,000 spots.<\/span><\/p>\n

Anyway, that\u2019s my word vomit on this particular topic.\u00a0 The reality is that regardless of my apparent unceremonious cutting from these peoples\u2019 internet lives, I still don\u2019t wish them any ill will or hold any genuine animosity towards them.\u00a0 This is the equivalent of silently busting their balls at their arrogance of thinking they\u2019re so important that they can\u2019t possibly have a pleeb like me associated with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

The chances are high that I\u2019ll run into some of these folks at the wedding, if the stars line up and most of the people in this group also make the trip.\u00a0 We might very well sit at similar tables, share drinks, stories, reminisce and possibly be in pictures together.\u00a0 It will in all likelihood be good times, but back on the internet we may as well remain strangers, as long as they\u2019re too good to remain friends with me online.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

To my knowledge, short of third-party plug-ins or software, it\u2019s not easy to really know when the people you know on social media unfriends you.\u00a0 Maybe if you don\u2019t have a generally high number of online friends and a pretty good memory, one might be able to notice the lack of a name or three … Continue reading The subtle arrogance of unfriending<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[73,83,52,156,49],"class_list":["post-48386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-brog","tag-friends","tag-observations","tag-owned","tag-social-media","tag-wtf"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=48386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48389,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48386\/revisions\/48389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/totfc.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}