So long, my Facebook friend . . .

The New York Times reports on the phenomenon of being "unfriended" on Facebook. Urban Dictionary (which is mostly really, really offensive, so don't click that link unless you're shock-proof) gives these as two definitions for "unfriend":

The oposite of befriending someone. When you unfriend someone you don't necessarily become their enemy per say, but you are just no longer their friend, sorta like just distancing yourself from them until you befriend them again.

The act of removing a friend from your facebook account. Compulsive people prune their friend list periodically, removing people that they no longer have contact with. More often though, unfriending is only done when a particular friend's updates and self-promotions become so annoying that you can no longer stand hearing about them. Or you might unfriend someone when they piss you off, however, this is not very effective since the person who is unfriended is not notified that you unfriended them and you'd be better off to keep them as a friend and plot your revenge.

I was delighted to discover from a friend (real and Facebook) that you could unfriend someone without a notification. First, if a Facebook friend wants to unfriend me, I don't need to know. Please just go gently into that good night. Second, I don't need real life drama when I unfriend someone who was better left in my past. The fact is that we friend a lot of people so as not to offend them. But then they're "all up in our business" (as we liked to say in Texas). So it's nice to be able to make a graceful, non-confrontational coward's exit.

This reminds me of when we all got caller ID 15 or so years ago. You would dial a wrong number, and then the person would call you back to ask you why you had hung up without saying anything? And suddenly you're in a relationship with someone who should have been a total stranger and you're explaining why your relationship just isn't working out for you. So they hang up on you. Now you're mad. So you call back to tell them how rude that was. And why not? You have each other's phone numbers. I was relieved when people began using caller ID as God intended: as a way to *ignore* people, not *engage* them.

Modern life is tricky.