Twelve Reasons You Might Be Unfriended on Facebook

Recently, several friends have declared that they’d had enough of Facebook and were leaving for good. The primary reason for one was that it seemed “Facebook (like cell phones) is very much like a giant angel food cake with thick creamy icing. It provides a huge amount of calories with almost no nutrition.”

I get this. There’s such a volume of frivolous posts to scroll through in my newsfeed or timeline. Even though I’ve systematically “unfollowed” a number of fringe acquaintances, there’s still a ton of verbage (with little substance) to get past before I can find the meaningful connections, informative or entertaining posts I enjoy.

Another friend feels that certain individuals share way too much. It takes the form of sniping, victimhood, emotions, rants, empty-headedness or oversharing of personal activities and information. “What motivates someone to be so confessional and all-revealing, or in other cases, to be so asinine or frivolous?” His conclusion falls within the bounds of Theodore Roosevelt’s famous quote: “Nobody cares how much you know, until they know how much you care.” Or along the same lines, from Maya Angelou: “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

These friends are leaving Facebook because they don’t like how it makes them feel and/or how it affects their relationship with their family and friends.

I would guess most of us have experienced a negative reaction to a Facebook post. Sometimes, it’s about the one posting. It raises feelings of annoyance, disrespect, cynicism, outrage or incredulity. Sometimes it’s about us. It leaves us feeling targeted, shocked, criticized, minimized, disregarded, embarrassed, impotent to help the other. Any of these can breed frustration and alienation.

Do you respond to these posts? Scroll on by? Or do you quietly unfollow the poster? They’ll never know! Perhaps you unfriend them (which could cause some drama if you know them in daily life or you’re related to them). Maybe you’re willing to stick it out and just hope they grow up or change. If you care about them, do you try to privately help them understand their “over-sharing” is harming their reputation and your relationship?

Not everyone wants to know the intimate or mundane details of your life, your immediate emotional state of mind, the problem you have with your spouse/child/boss/in-laws/police/politician, what you ate for dinner, what bodily functions aren’t functioning, or your views on politics and religion. And that’s just for starters. The things that annoy people on social media are as diverse as the one billion people who use it every day.

I personally choose Facebook as my platform of choice to connect with far-away family and friends, to keep up with significant events and milestones, to learn how to pray for them and to privately message or video-chat with them on more personal matters. It has enabled me to connect with childhood friends, classmates and extended family members I never knew. But while this is my reason for staying on connected on this forum, there are significant drawbacks.

If I feel this way, I figure others do too, so I did a straw poll on my Facebook feed to ask others what annoys them enough to unfollow, unfriend or avoid certain Facebook friends. Here’s a few general categories, with actual examples.

Disclaimer: If you feel this is being targeted at you, it’s not. I have no personal vendetta and no desire to shame anyone. This is an application of the old saying, “If the shoe fits, wear it.” This is an opportunity to examine yourself closely in the mirror and give heed to what, perhaps, you could change about your online persona that may be affecting your reputation and creating significant rifts or irreversible damage to your relationships.

1. The Narcissist

Selfies here, selfies there, everywhere a selfie, selfie. “Here are 159 pictures from my vacation. Here’s one of me, up close, and one of us up close and twelve dozen of us far away and close up and all the rest are of me and us and all of our closest friends and our server up close and, oh, right, I almost forgot, here’s one picture of where we went.”

2. The Exhibitionist

“Look at me! Look at me! in all my pictures with as little clothing as possible. Or notice if I hold the camera at the right angle you can get a lovely view of my cleavage.”

“Here’s a picture of me in the bathroom mirror because it shows my abs so nicely, don’t you think? Of course I’m not telling you how many shots it took (100+) for me to get it just right.”

3. The Manipulator

“Like and share if you agree.”

“If you don’t share and post this on your page, you’ll be cursed.”

“If you’re not ashamed… share this post.”

“Everyone is touched by (insert name of disease here), so post this on your status for one hour to show your support.”

“If I don’t see your name, I’ll understand.”

4. Needy Nellie

“I don’t think anyone reads my status, can you post one word so I know you are reading my posts?”

“I wonder if I said ‘hello’, how many people would say it back?”

“No one in my entire church/community/club/team is helping me. I’m all alone and no one cares.”

“Can I get an ‘Amen’ or a thumbs up or a like and share?”

“Can I get 1 million likes for…(insert issue, cause or little kid picture)”

"I know no one will read this post...... let's find out who my real friends are."

"If you love me you'll comment on this post that I have obviously copied and pasted from other needy friends."

5. Clueless 

“I don’t know whether this post I’m sharing is true, but it sounds like it.”

“I share everything I read because I have no life or opinion of my own.”

6. The Zealot

“Here’s the latest product, ideology, philosophy, theology or cute quote which I like, use or believe is the best thing going and if you don’t like, use or believe the same, I’m on a higher moral plain than you and here are ten reasons why you’re an idiot.”

7. The Troll (aka The Hater)

“I disagree. And if you don’t agree with me, then I obviously haven’t explained myself well enough, so let me just repeat myself. If you still don’t agree after that, well, obviously you’re hard of hearing so let me just RAISE MY VOICE. And if you still are so numbskulled as to believe your viewpoint is right and mine is wrong, I will begin to call you names, use profanity and suggest you are a waste of skin.”

8. The Sales Call

“I have discovered the secret to everything, my life will never be the same, and I am spending the rest of my entire existence on Facebook trying to get you to become part of my multi-level-marketing organization.”

9. The Cryptic

“I can’t believe that just happened.”

“My life will never be the same.”

“I am in utter shock and disbelief.”

“Off to emergency room… pray!!!”

10. The Confessor

“I’ve done something terrible and I have to come clean.”

"Let me just tell you way more than you ever wanted to know about my private life."

11. The Braggart

Female: “Look at what my sweet honey bought me for Christmas/birthday/no reason because he’s just the most fabulous prince ever or because I manipulated and threatened him into it and he knows ‘happy wife, happy life’. LOLOLOLOL”

Male version: “See picture of me posing with hot car, hot bike, hot babes or cold beer.”

12. The Legalist

“Sign this (completely useless and ineffective) petition for (whatever pet issue of the day is creating outrage in my social circle).”

“If you don’t live your life in the way I describe, you are going straight to hell.”

"If you support that other political party, you are an idiot."

“If you don’t hear “Merry Christmas” from every retail clerk you encounter this season, you’re being persecuted.”

“I do not give Facebook permission to….”

* * * *

Well, I hope you had fun laughing with me through the ridiculousness of some of these items. I’m sure others can poke fun at me from their own perspective. The main thing is, let’s use technology in ways that help make relationships grow, not the opposite.

Have you experienced other types of posts that have tempted you to unfriend or unfollow someone?

Apples of Gold

“It really makes me sad to see you speak so harshly to yourself.”

I looked at his face, tender with concern. Harshly to myself? What had I said?

“I pray I will know when to speak and when to shut my mouth.”

It was, on the surface, a genuine concern to only say what is helpful. To not speak in unhelpful or hurtful ways. To carefully choose my battles and determine which hills to die on, then speak with the right attitude and in the right tone of voice. Because we know that it’s not so much what you say but how you say it that leaves the listener remembering how you made them feel. For goodness sake, I even pray about this sort of thing. And I sometimes decide not to speak when I listen to the still, small voice which cautions me to be still.

I had said the first part in a normal voice: “I pray I will know when to speak.” Speak up for those who have no voice. Speak peace into a troubled heart. Speak encouragement for the weak one. Speak up when I have been wronged. I’m still learning how to do that last one without being a prickly pear.

But when to shut my mouth? Ah, that I said with a snarl and a curled lip. A self-flagellation for every time I spoke out of turn, spoke too loud, spoke unkindly, hurt someone, accused someone, berated someone.

It takes me right back to Grade Eight science class when Bruce and Gerry gave me an unflattering nickname: Meramac Cavern Mouth. They were my friends, we sang together. I liked them. We teased each other. But I was loud and they poked me for it, choosing the largest cave in the state as my namesake.

Yes, I was loud in Junior High. I was obnoxious. I was funny. I was busy. I was a singer. I was confident. I was sometimes insecure and I was trying to find my place in the world, just having experienced my first kiss.

That was awkward and gross. I didn’t know what to do with that icky feeling. So I redirected it in anger against the boy who tried it and to my best friend and her boyfriend who goaded us into it. Sitting on the cold floor of her parents’ garage, we two couples, all the early side of 14 years old, decided to explore kissing. And it was a bomb. I was embarrassed. Was something wrong with me? Was it him? Neither one of us knew how. I was disappointed that I’d chosen poorly and I could never get “my first kiss” back. It was gone and now it would forever be engraved in history as a bad mistake I made with a pudgy Grade Seven boy.

What followed was my first experience with really hurting someone with my words. I broke up with the boy and decided I didn’t want to be friends with my best friend any more. I made unkind remarks about her to others at school. The vitriol went on until one of the teachers called me aside to say, “I know your brother (a teacher in Grade Six) and I know your family and I know they didn’t raise you to act like this. You are being a bully and it needs to stop.”

I did stop. I was embarrassed that someone had to take me aside like that, yet I was grateful because I knew he was right.

“The right word at the right time is like a custom-made piece of jewelry, and a wise friend’s timely reprimand is like a gold ring slipped on your finger. Patient persistence pierces through indifference; gentle speech breaks down rigid defenses.” Proverbs 25:11-12,15 (MSG)

My friend and I made up but it was always different after that. We had both been wounded and my words had left scars on us both.

The awkward, gross, icky feeling of Grade Eight surfaces every time I see that look in another person’s eyes: I’ve hurt them. I kick myself over and over for speaking at the wrong time or in the wrong way, even if what I said was valid. They couldn’t receive it because my timing or tone of voice was offensive.

As time passes, as I mature, I have earned a measure of success and respect for how I speak and what I write. But as many writers do, I write very carefully, wrestling long and hard over anything I put in print: to say it right, to say it well, to say it clearly. It can take an entire morning to write and publish one blog post. And I anguish over emails, writing and re-writing paragraphs to minimize any possibility of misinterpretation and still, it is sometimes misunderstood, the reader misses the point or fixates on one ill-chosen phrase.

I have no one to blame but myself.

Or so I thought.

In sober second thought, my rational mind can logically deduce that others are also responsible for their reactions. They hear what I have to say through their own background experience and emotional filters. They give different value, meaning and weight to my words than what I intended.

When another is offended, I can sometimes understand in retrospect how it hurt them, if they let me know. More often they don’t say anything. They just fade away. Not many people confront me about my words. Not many people confront anyone. It seems confrontation is avoided at all costs by a majority of us.

When that unsettled feeling rises, that subtle alienation after I say something intense, passionate or strong, I go away and analyze it. Replay the full conversation, maybe the entire event in my head more than once, guess at how it might have been interpreted (how impossible is that, since I’m trying to understand someone else’s filters through my own).

I know I am not alone in this practice. You do it too, perhaps?

So back to the original remark that started this all off. When I pray I want to know when to keep my mouth shut, I’m thinking of all that has come before. All the ways I’ve caused pain to the heart of another. That overbearing burden of being a person who so often wounds another, that somehow I should be able to not do that.

I should be perfect.

Or at least, “If you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.”

So I turn on myself. “Keep your mouth shut!” my inner critic snarls.

And the one who loves me best, who sees me at my worst, who has promised to love and cherish me until death parts us, tells me how sad he is to see that venom turned inward.

This is a shining moment in love, in marriage: the mirror held up by a loving hand to help me see clearly where I am self-cutting. The one who sees my heart, knows my life and moves to restrain my hand from the mea culpa.

“It is not only what you say but, more importantly, how you say it.”

Especially when you are saying it to yourself. Self-compassion is not selfishness. It is what makes it possible for us to live whole and compassionate in all our other relationships.

He goes on, “Ask yourself how you would speak to another person, and speak to yourself in that same courteous way.”

Words can heal and words can kill. Words wound and words give life. So, I will continue to pray about when to speak and when to be silent. Because silence is not always golden. Sometimes silence means consent or cowardice. In that case, speaking graciously is the most loving way to live in community with one another.

I’m so glad for the way another spoke healing words to me.

Watch the way you talk. Let nothing foul or dirty come out of your mouth. Say only what helps, each word a gift. Don’t grieve God. Don’t break his heart. His Holy Spirit, moving and breathing in you, is the most intimate part of your life, making you fit for himself. Don’t take such a gift for granted. Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you. Ephesians 4:29-32 MSG

Psychology 101: Dealing with Difficult People

Each of us has probably done something that hurt or disappointed someone else. The chances are remote that anyone intentionally says or does hurtful things. 

But what about careless words? thoughtless? impulsive? angry words?

Or no words at all?

Dead silence.

.

.

.

.

.

Or worse, ambivalent words. Non-committal. Disengaged. Feigned apathy.

“What would you like to do?”

“I don’t care.”

“Where would you like to eat?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

“Do you want A or B?”

“Whatever. You pick.”

And then when you pick, they aren't happy. But then, would they be happy in any case?

In my view, this is dysfunctional, juvenile and temperamental. It expresses a dog-in-the-manger attitude that says, “If I can’t be happy with my current circumstances, then no one else is going to enjoy themselves either”. The dis-engaged person isn't expressing his/her true needs, he/she is just expecting others to be a mind-reader and fulfill every desire. This is the worst kind of  prima donna attitude: “The world should just make me happy without me having to speak a word or lift a finger.” 

On occasion this behavior is revenge-based. "You didn't do what I wanted, (or you hurt me) so now you're going to pay the price." 

What’s sad is this behavior produces no change in either party.

In my experience, people who act this way usually fall into two camps. They either 1) really do have an over-inflated sense of their own self-importance and feel others should cater to their every whim, "Because I'm right!" or 2) they hate themselves and are behaving in a way that guarantees others will dislike them, thus confirming their bias against themselves. 

There are other possibilities, but these are the more common and both border on an irrational view of relationships. This type of person frequently creates drama and/or division in a family or friend group (“I’m not happy until you’re not happy”). They subconsciously want attention (and bad attention is better than no attention). They get their way through emotional blackmail but even when they get what they want, they are discontent because they had to ask for it. Then when you try to get them to see how they are acting, they withdraw, pout, make excuses: "I'm just tired", or turn the tables: "Who are you to talk? You were mean to me last week."

How do you deal with this kind of person if you’re stuck with them? 

1. Do you let them off the hook by finding excuses? “Oh, she’s in menopause” or “Oh, he’s under a lot of stress at work”. Or do you take the blame? "I must have done something wrong."
2. Do you care enough to confront? If you name their behavior for what it is, would they believe you? Are they capable of seeing the futility of their behavior? Do they even want to be different or are they genuinely mean-spirited? 
3. Or do you cut them off? Where does love, grace and forgiveness come in if they are unwilling to repent of this habitual conduct?

Viral Videos and a Reasoned Response

There is a current video going viral whose stated purpose is to raise awareness of something that is horrific, yet the organization is advocating violence as a resolution. They are selling merchandise to "raise awareness" - but it's not clear how much of the money they make actually goes to help those who are being exploited. I personally don't advocate violence and murder (even of criminals) as a viable solution to crime, but some say it's better than nothing. I don't agree and I won't support someone who advocates violence to stop violence, no matter how persuasive their movies are.

As for an ongoing response to anything viral, I have a few recommendations:

1. Don't let your heart run away with your common sense. Be careful about "awareness" campaigns that appeal strongly to emotions and, on the surface, appear to be quoting facts, but don't offer much in documentation or alternate sources beyond their own statements.

2. Check facts before you share. If you can't check the facts, don't share. That's gossip, hearsay, and it's how all hoaxes are propagated.

3. Sensationalized situations often result in hysterical or knee-jerk reactions that are not well coordinated. The Bible instructs us that things are to be done "decently and in order". Go to organizations who have effective ministries established in the affected areas and ask their assistance or input to the situation. Top of the list are the International Justice Mission, Compassion International and World Vision.

4. Pray for the oppressed. Pray that God's justice will reign.

5. Don't be manipulated by other's opinions or fall prey to "false guilt" that leads you to do something or support something you haven't fully checked out. If they can't respect your need to do your homework before you jump on the bandwagon, then be very suspicious of their motives. Anyone that lays a guilt trip on you isn't a true friend.

5. If you feel that you want to support an organization because their cause and approach is something with which you agree and you have the financial resources to do so; then pray about it and consult wise advisors. If God gives you release to do it, then by all means, support them. That is an individual choice, and you must be discerning and determine God's will in the matter for yourself.

6. Don't get side tracked by rabbit trails down the path to every "worthy" cause in the world and instead, focus on what is in front of you to do right now. Does your kid need a hug? Does that stack of papers need to be filed? Dishes or clothes washed? Phone call made? Whatever you've been putting off, just DO it.

For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline. 2 Timothy 1:7


Question: How do you tend to react to emotional appeals? What steps do you take before you give of your time or resources to a crisis response? (Answer by clicking on "Comments" below or link to your own post).

Gifts that were Plan B

149. My Plan A was that I didn't care if we had kids or not. Plan A.2 was to have a child after about 5 years of marriage. Due to life circumstance and varied opinion between us, we did not have our son until 12 years after we were married. That means we were older than most parents of his classmates. However, he is the best gift of any we have ever received, and he continues to be so, every day of his life. 150. The parents of his two best friends are now good friends of ours. 151. Those 12 years gave us time to travel and work hard to establish our home before a child came into the picture.

152. My Plan A(again) was to have a second child. When our son was four, my husband gently but firmly confirmed he was unwilling to add to our family. The gift of one child is that we are able to provide more options and opportunity for him, and to give him more time and financial resources than if he had a sibling. Yes, I know there are pros and cons to that, but this blog is only about naming the gifts at this point. 153. The gift for me, which I did not appreciate at the time, is that I wasn't giving birth to a second child at age 40. It was extremely challenging the first time, with medical issues for both mother and child. 154. At 54, I would have a very hard time parenting a 14 year old. Empty nest is a gift, but I'd surrender it in a split second if our son decided to move back home after university. At least for a couple of years. :-)

155. Our current house was Plan B. When we moved back to Calgary from Rainbow Lake (where the road ends, literally) in 2001, we purchased a home that was so lovely, I said "I never want to move again, I love it so much I could live here till I die." However, in January 2008, at my husband's urging, we sold that home and took possession of our current home in a different community. I agreed but I was not thrilled. However, it soon became apparent that this choice was a blessing. Plan B meant I was only 6 minutes from work. Plan B meant we no longer had the back windows of 11 houses within eyesight of our back deck. The Plan B house was private and well treed. The Plan B house had a basement our son loves, air conditioning and an unobstructed, panoramic view of the Rocky Mountains - a gift that just keeps on giving.

Funny, isn't it, how time gives a perspective that showed those things I count very negative at the time often end up bringing positive results? It is so important NOT to discount these gifts, ignore them, or dismissively say they have no value in light of the immediate pain and conflict we experienced. Is it possible that I should be more open to my husband's viewpoints when he determines that something is in the best interests of our family? (That is a rhetorical question). There was only conflict because I opposed him so strongly. Both of us can be pig-headed. Resistance begets more resistance. How much pain we could have avoided, had we learned earlier to listen more carefully, discuss less emotionally, and consider the other's preferences and desires more openly. After all, the best gifts in life are the relationships we have. Guard those with all your heart.

The most important marriage skill is listening to your partner in a way that they can’t possibly doubt that you love (and respect) them. ~Diane Sollee, smartmarriages.com 

Question: Do you think your Plan A is the only way? How do you remain a loving listener when you are hearing a plan completely different from your own?