Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Why I am Unfriending You

Dear Person Who is My Facebook Friend, But Whom I Don't Really Know and with Whom, it has now become painfully clear, I Have Nothing in Common,

I don't know why we're friends. It's not that I don't like you, because clearly I did like you, at one time, maybe more than 20 years ago. Or maybe I never really liked you and never really knew you, but somehow found you again after lo these many years, and then somehow felt guilty that I didn't know you or that I was judging the now-you based on the old-you and so I accepted your friend request, or I saw you on a friend's page and thought "Hey, that who's it. I should send a friend request." Because we all know that more friends are better, right? If I have a lot of friends that somehow makes me a good person, better, say, than those other people who have less friends.
But now, now it has become clear that not only do I not really know you, I don't think, actually, that I DO like you. In fact, I think I dislike you. Not, as you might suspect, because you leave snarky and judgmental comments on my supposedly humorous political posts. Not, as you might fear, because I am a censoring communist that wants to take away your guns and your right to talk about your guns. Not, as you might posit, because I don't want to hear the voice of dissent.
No, actually, it's because I'm tired. Tired of the political climate in which the only way people can disagree is to call each other names like Nazis or communists. Tired of a culture in which the President wanting to talk to schoolchildren is suspect. Tired of people who say they believe in the Constitution when they don't, actually, know what it says.
Yes, I have to say. Some of the people who disagree with me ARE stupid and racist. I just didn't know that you were one of them.
Now, I realize, Facebook really should just be a place where I update everyone on what I'm eating and my workout routine.
For all these reasons and more, oh so much more, I am unfriending you.

7 comments:

Nik said...

Went to see what happened. As if calling someone Hitler is just an opinion.

ErinAlice said...

I agree. I have started unfriending my friends one by one. One of them is the one who did, in fact, compare Obama to Hitler. I am glad I am not the only one who feels like I do. They will never know I have unfriended them and even if they do, I don't really care. Guess I am a communists too!

Lisa B. said...

I want to turn this into an actual facebook app. So I can apply it at will. Well done, you.

lis said...

I have been unfriending like crazy lately. in fact, this is my strategy if someone I don't really want to friend friends me. I accept them so they don't feel bad and then quickly unfriend them. but recently the mean girl from elementary school friended me. And her profile pic makes her look like a mean girl still. it makes me fret b/c i want to forgive, but. . .

ok, off topic. no, no room for actual political discussions on facebook--just more of the namecalling and hate mongering.

i'm going to go monger some waffles now.

Julie said...

i actually ended up unfriending all of my family because of the reasons you described. so sad.

Steve Fellner said...

Is this letter for me?

Clint Gardner said...

Can we call Megastore's proposed fb app "I am a censoring communist who wants to take away your guns"? How about "Facebook Gulag" for short.

Gods, I need a facebook Gulag--especially for relatives who don't know that facebook is a professional forum for me and not where they post updates about their gaul bladder cysts on my wall.