To De or Not To De: That is today's question.

Alright kids, gather round. Today we're going to talk about today's ultimate burn: being de-friended on facebook. I'm really not sure of the yesteryear equivalent. Being picked last for the kickball team? Being completely ignored, kind of like the episode of South Park where Cartman thought he was dead? Anywho. Let's get on with this.

To de-friend someone on facebook is to pretty much say "I never want to see you again. I want nothing to do with you. You are dead to me. I am cutting you out of my life completely." Once your former lover/roommate/best friend de-friends you, your updates will no longer show up in their news feed. They won't be forced to endure status updates, pictures posted, or farmville notifications. On the other hand, depending on your security settings, if they for some reason WANT to creep your profile, they won't be able to see anything, save your networks and MAYBE a small profile picture. Maybe.

Personally, I have only felt compelled to de-friend people on two occasions in my life. The first was a completely normal occurrence. Remember when facebook was for college kids only?? And the best moment of your summer before freshman year was getting your college email address so you could get facebook?? And how many random people you friended that were members of "FALL INCOMING CLASS 200X!!" Yeah...well...after I finally arrived on campus and realized that I wasn't going to actually be friends with all these people who I had told about my down-alternative bed spread and string lights, I did a little cleaning. Understandable, yes?

The other time I de-friended somebody was more recently. I was having a bit of a stalker issue and it got to the point where I didn't want him in my life anymore. I didn't want to drag authorities or anybody else into it yet, so I simply de-friended him, thinking that MAYBE he'd take the hint. He didn't. Instead, he re-friended me and included a little message. I don't remember it word-for-word anymore but I'm pretty sure he thought I was awfully rude for removing him from my friends list. I'm sorry. I didn't like when you facebook i.med me twenty times in one day. At this point I had to take it one step further and block him. I had never blocked anybody on facebook. At the time, my blocking knowledge was limited to AIM. I'm assuming it worked because I never heard from him (at least on facebook) again. Also, I can't search for him. So it does go both ways. That's alright. I don't need to see his creepy/emo status updates.

So, interwebs folk, what brings you to the point of having to de-friend a person? Did your break up leave you in your pajamas for a week with only Ben and Jerry for company? Did your best friend steal yo man? Sick of looking at somebody's ugly mug? Let me know what's up on this one...as usual it's a modern phenomena that confuses me.

xoxo