That moment where you see your Facebook friends has gone down or you notice someone you interacted with has stopped following you on twitter are strange moments. In the main the people that de-friend you or those who stop following you are people you never speak to anyway. They are people you knew from school but haven’t spoken to in ten years or people who followed you because they liked a RT they saw of yours but then noticed they didn’t like your style of tweeting. However when it’s someone you do know and do speak to that decides enough is enough then how are you meant to react?
I remember back in 2009 when I left my employment. One person in the office de-friended me from Facebook in the time I took to leave the office for the final time and stroll the seven minutes home. First point is it is clear we weren’t any sort of friends if she decided that within those seven minutes she needed to cut me out of her life altogether. Secondly how awkward was it when we bumped into each other? I knew how much she didn’t like me and she knew how much she didn’t like me and yet the small talk and uncomfortable moments were there. Thirdly a few months ago she requested to be added to her LinkedIn connections.
So from thinking that I wasn’t even worthy of being Facebook friends with she has a couple of years later decided I might be worth knowing in a professional sense because at some point my expertise might be valuable to her. I sit back and shrug. No skin off my nose either way and the odds of us ever interacting again are minimal at best. However what happens when this happens to people you know you will interact with again?
Being followed by on twitter or being Facebook friends with someone is kind of a strange ‘vote of confidence’ and when it is taken away you start to wonder what is it you did wrong. You start to look at your tweets and try to work out what could have offended someone. You look at your Facebook statuses and do the same. It is always good when you can work out exactly when someone has given you the chop as you can narrow down why. What I can never understand is why you get cut from one but not the other? Not worthy enough to follow on twitter but worthy enough to be Facebook friends with.
I know many believe they are different clientèle and you can easily be worthy enough to know on Facebook but not bother with on twitter. I get that to some degree as obviously I’m not Facebook friends with everyone I follow on twitter but once you follow/friend on both then surely if you cut someone from one then the other would swiftly follow? Seems pretty clear cut to me.
Anyway here’s to more uncomfortable small talk with people in the future. I know that situation will arise again in the near future and I wonder if it is worth just coming out and saying, ‘look I know you don’t like me so why the pretence?’ if there is one thing I loath then it is falseness and that is something in this digital age we will suffer from a lot.
I hope you enjoyed this blog post. Please leave any comments or contact me directly via the E-Mail Me link on the Right Hand Nav. You can stay in touch with the blog following me on Twitter or by liking the blog on Facebook. Please share this content via the Social Media links below if you think anyone else would enjoy reading.
Be First to Comment