Jan 1, 2016
My dear Facebook friend,
You are being Unfriended…
I had made a new year’s resolution to create a Cull (kill) list of all those FB friends whom I felt were surplus to my social network. It seems that your name appeared on top of the list.
As there are another 50 odd names in this list, it would be rather tedious to be explaining to each one of the 50, why I decided to Unfriend them.
However, as you are on top of the list and perhaps could benefit from this note to improve your Social Networking etiquettes and skills, I decided to extend this courtesy only to you.
As Facebook so conveniently provides an activity log, I can see that you have been on my list for over a year.
Do you remember six months ago, I put up a picture of my daughter’s graduation? That was a fine day and my hair looked good and I could see the radiance and glow on my daughter’s face. How many likes did I get? Over 300.
That’s more than the friends I have. Even my followers liked that picture. Guess who was the only friend who did not like that picture? YOU!!!
Do you realize, how hard it is to go through 300 likes and over 50 comments and to deduce that only your name was missing from the list?
And why did I do that? Precisely for the reason, why you are on the kill list. It told me how much you really cared about the happiest day of my life.
And how about my birthday? Of the hundreds of wishes I got on my timeline, yours was the only one that said “HBD”.
HBD?? This is so sad. Is that the best you could do?
There were countless other times when I shared baby pictures as well as putting up my motivational message, and what did I get from you? …. ZILCH
And then there are the countless insignificant and meaningless status updates and posts that you have shared, which I took the time to Like, even though they were uninspiring and dull. And why did I do that? Seeing that you only have 50 friends and none of your posts ever managed more than 10 Likes, I kinda felt sorry for you. I have always gone out of my way to say something polite or even shared an emoji or two to brighten your day. It is a rather sad state of affairs that, despite all my efforts to ensure that you would reciprocate my daily courtesies with likes, comments or an occasional emoji, you have failed my “FB Friendship” test.
As it is, FB takes all my leisure time. I haven’t taken the wife or the dog out for months. Both are completely disillusioned with me. Lately, the dog has refused to acknowledge me when I enter the house. As opposed to times when he used jump up and down with excitement with his frisbee in his mouth.
Similarly, the wife does not speak with me anymore and just sends me inbox messages and comments on FB, when she wants to get something done.
I am hoping that by going through this cull and reducing the friends list by 50 friends, I would have less birthdays and anniversaries to wish and be less disappointed when I don’t get the expected likes and comments.
So, for future reference, make sure you pay attention to your Friends’ posts, whether they are baby pictures or birthdays. A Like or a proper birthday wish is a minimum with a suitable emoji to top it off.
And finally, if you have something useful or meaningful to say or share, do it only on Facebook. If you have nothing important to say, do it in person. Like I do.
