Most online connections that I have who are not face to face friends or family are from people who sent me a request for friendship. I do not even accept those requests lightly. I will go to their page to see what types of things if any that we have in common. I will see when they created their page. I will look to see what kinds of groups they are in, music they like, movies they watch and if we have any mutual friends. I want to see if there is some common ground. I then either accept of decline the request. If I accept I take the time to try and get to know the person.
In the past month or two I have had an unusual amount of people unfriending me. I am not sure why and I am only left to guess or assume the cause. The things I come up with are pretty shallow. One very resounding reason seems to be, mutual friends. Jane is having a fight with Sylvia so Sylvia unfriends Jane. I was still talking to Jane, I would comment on her posts, or like her pictures. I would also still talk to Sylvia and like her pictures and comment on her posts. Since I am friends with Sylvia, Jane unfriends me even though I had nothing to do with their fight. I said nothing about their fight. I did not even talk to them about their fight. I even chose to stay out of it when I saw them passively aggressively attacking each other all over the internet. Heck that is between them, I have no business sticking my nose where it does not belong. Perhaps I should have taken sides?
Of course I am using fake names in the above scenario, but it seems that several times this has been the case. It bothers me, because as I said, I try and take the time to get to know people. To me Facebook is not a business, it is a place where I make friends and communicate with friends and family. I am a real person, with real opinions, real ideas, dreams, and aspirations, but most of all very real feelings.
I share my feelings about things. This can range anywhere from how I feel about the treatment of our veterans to religion. Or from my opinion on a certain restaurant to my opinion on a story I read on a news website.
When I share my views/feelings/opinions, I am not trying to convert you to my way of thinking. I am merely sharing my viewpoint, my feelings and my take on any given scenario. I share most of these things very publicly and I love feedback. I love it when people share their own ideas, or feelings, I love discussing varying viewpoints. Heck I can even be swayed to see things in a whole new light. I am not closed minded. I am not shut off to the idea that I might be missing another angle.
When someone decides to remove me without so much as a word about it or why, then I left to assume that our connection never meant anything to them. They were simply a number under my "friends" heading and I was simply a number under theirs. They are the walking talking mannequin that I never wanted to have as a connection in the first place. I suppose I should be grateful that they are gone now, but I'm not. I took a vested interest in this person. I took time out of my day to say hello. I took time out of my day to show interest in what they had to say. I made room for them in my life. So yes it does bother me. Yes I do feel like I really did not matter. You can say, "who cares, they weren't a real friend anyway. You don't need that in your life. You are better off without them." I think you know as well as I do, those words are just a cover-up for what we really feel. Sure we don't need that in our lives but that does not negate the fact we suddenly feel a little or a lot hurt. We feel used to a certain extent, and we are left to wonder. " Seriously, what the heck did I ever do to you?"
The best way I can try and protect myself is too see these people not as genuine human beings, having a genuine heart, but only as being emotionless, uncaring mannequins of the internet.
