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We Can Be Friends — Just Not on Facebook

Early on in my social media experience, I was often paranoid about being unfriended on Facebook. I worried endlessly about what I did to offend.

I eventually stopped caring and even took delight when someone deleted me. In my mind, it meant I had successfully gotten on the nerves of someone who deserved it.

Amid political divisiveness that has turned social media into a sewer, my thinking about online friendships — especially on Facebook — has evolved. In the process, I’ve gone on an unfriending spree of my own.

Mood Music:

I often see people announcing that they’re trimming their friends lists as if those they delete are unworthy subjects, unfit to be in their kingdom. Yet I did that very thing last week:

Facebook post from Bill Brenner: One thing I’ve always valued about social media is the ability for people to have a healthy exchange of ideas and find common ground. It’s increasingly difficult to find that on Facebook. People share memes without checking to see if they are based on truth or misinformation. They talk past each other instead of to each other. Data points are distorted to fit a viewpoint. People talk down to other people and confuse the action as one of virtue. Those I speak of exist on the left and right sides of the political spectrum. I’ve begun deleting a lot of people from my friends list. I don’t have time to roll around in the dirt. Peace to you all.

Since then, the pace of my unfriending has picked up. Mostly, I’ve removed those who push conspiracy theories and see public health measures in a pandemic as an assault on liberty, which I don’t buy. I try to be the voice of reason, the guy seeking the middle ground. But when it comes to what I see as thick-headed individuals contributing to the disastrous COVID-19 surge playing out across the south and western U.S. — threatening the rest of us with further death, lockdowns and economic pain — I can’t play along any more. You can’t achieve common ground with people who aren’t willing to meet you halfway and maybe admit when they’re wrong. Since I’ve admitted when I’m wrong many times, it’s not too much to ask.

Right or wrong, that’s how I feel. I don’t think I’m better than anyone else. But by unfriending those who contribute to it, I preserve my sanity.

There’s a lesson here. Regarding those people I thought were being self-important by announcing that they were unfriending people? I was probably being overly judgmental. On further reflection, they were probably doing what they had to do and the announcement serves as a warning (or relief?) to the rest of their followers.

Some of the people I removed are long-time friends and family. If you’re among them, I haven’t necessarily lost affection for you. I just can’t keep looking at what you’re pushing. I know others have concluded the same about me, and I respect that.

If you believe the opposite of what I believe, you’re likely finding my posts to be too much. If that’s the case, for the sake of your own sanity, you should unfriend me.

Friendships can and should endure. Just not always on Facebook, where relationships are not always the same as in the offline world.

Cartoon image of a man in a suit and tie and a women in a dress passing walking down a street. The woman says: "My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane." Image by David Sipress
Cartoon by David Sipress
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Politics, Facebook Friends and the Damage Done

After all my blogging this past election season about how friends and family shouldn’t become enemies over politics and how we all need to knock off the conspiracy theories and name-calling, I’m reviewing my Facebook friends list in search of damage. Here’s my final analysis.

It turns out one person unfriended me. I considered her a solid Facebook friend. We went to high school together and shared many musical tastes. We both post a lot about our families and love and care for our children. But last week she cut me loose without explanation. I think I know why.

She has always been the type to complain a lot on Facebook, such as fights with her husband and hatred of her job. She held nothing back. That’s her right. It is her Facebook account, after all. The day after the election, she melted down, suggesting that things would never be OK again and that we were all doomed. I mentioned her comment in my day-after-the-election post, though I didn’t mention her by name. My goal was to cheer up her and others crushed by Romney’s defeat by offering some “life goes on” perspective. But she apparently wasn’t up for it.

No hard feelings. I don’t regret what I did, and I did keep her comment anonymous.

Meanwhile, I unfriended four people, including a husband and wife, last week. I didn’t do so because these people were liberal or conservative. I did it because I felt they were going over the top and painting everyone who disagreed with them as tyrants.

One former and very liberal friend finally gave me more than I could take when he posted a meme trivializing the power of prayer compared to science. He had been posting stuff like that all along and pinning all the world’s folly on Republicans. Believing as I do that both parties are equally to blame for our current economic and political troubles and in the power of prayer, I decided I didn’t need to see his bullshit anymore.

I hated unfriending the husband and wife. I particularly liked the husband, given our common musical tastes and the paths we both crossed back in the day, even if we didn’t know each other at the time. But they were taking their hatred of President Obama to levels I finally found too toxic for my blood.

If they had simply posted stuff about how Romney was the better choice for America, I’d have been fine with it. But everything became a conspiracy to them. Obama went from being the least capable steward of the economy to someone like Hitler, a guy who happily kills women and children and then covers it up. Their posts intensified after the election, and that’s when I respectfully cut ties.

All in all, I’d say the damage wasn’t too terrible. That’s a small amount of unfriending considering I have 2,334 friends, family and business associates in my network.

I choose to believe most of us got through all the vitriol in one piece. Hopefully, we can enjoy each other’s company a bit more now.

At least until the next election.

Alternate Politics