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Facebook: Unfriend vs. Hide


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I would like to unfriend several people from my list. However, this would cause some problems, so I'm wondering if hiding would be better? What have you all done, and if I hide them, can I also hide me from them?

 

If it matters, these are "friends" from a former church that we left. None of them know that we no longer entirely believe as they do (re: legalism thread) and wouldn't approve of our current church. :001_unsure:

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Okay, I'll try to answer as best as I can.

I first hid lots and lots of people. I still do hide some. No, I don't think you can hide yourself from others. I wish that were true.

Lately, I've really skimmed down and unfriended lots and lots. My friends list is about half as long as it was 2 weeks ago. I love it.

You're an adult. You make the decisions. If they're going to be offended, let them be offended. They need to learn to deal with it. You could do it ever so gradually. ;) Say, one a day or one every week. I say that life is too short to worry about others' feelings. If they can not approve of your current church, you can also make the choice have them be your friend or not. This is no longer high school. FB, to me, has a very high-schoolish/infantile way about it.

If I were to start over with FB, I would have been far, far more selective about the friends I have. Ideally, I would like my friends list to be less than 100, maybe even 50. Hard to do now. I don't think I could skim any further.

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Do you unfriend real friends?

 

I admit I was hurt by someone who unfriended about half of her list and told me she no longer wishes to be friends with anyone she sees in person regularly and only wishes to be friends with those who live too far away and she needs to know what is going on with them via FB.

 

Dawn

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You can definitely control what other people see. I block my posts from a lot of my "friends." :)

 

I have found that when I unfriended someone they were either really insulted (two people went on to not be my friend IRL and talked about me endlessly very publicly on their FB pages) or they just requested to be my friend again. :glare:

 

I've only had a few people realize they were blocked from what I was posting and I either told them they wouldn't appreciate what I tend to post about or I played dumb and told them it must be a glitch with Facebook and I can't seem to fix it. :lol:

 

After my experiences with unfriending people, I just block people now and save myself a lot of grief.

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Do you unfriend real friends?

Dawn

Nope, online friends only so far. People I've never met and only know from the internet.

I tend to unfriend those who might not realize I've unfriended them. Those with a gazillion friends already.

I hope I haven't offended anyone. Those who have unfriended me, and there have been a few, I haven't let it get to me. I found it to be a bit of a relief actually.

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You can place them on/in a restricted group, so that they can only see certain things.

From Facebook:

You can always choose to share content with or hide content from one or more lists using the audience selector. Or you can share with everyone on one of your lists:

  1. From your home page, find your Lists in the left-column.
  2. Click on the name of the list you want to share with.
  3. Choose one of the options from the top of the page (ex: Update Status).
  4. Click Post to share with only the people on that list. Note that you can change the audience of your post later using the audience selector.

You can also add people to your Restricted list. When you add someone to your Restricted list, they will only be able to see your Public content or posts of yours that you tag them in.

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I would like to unfriend several people from my list. However, this would cause some problems, so I'm wondering if hiding would be better? What have you all done, and if I hide them, can I also hide me from them?

 

If it matters, these are "friends" from a former church that we left. None of them know that we no longer entirely believe as they do (re: legalism thread) and wouldn't approve of our current church. :001_unsure:

I do just put those people on "hide." After enough time has gone by I might unfriend them. :D

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Do you unfriend real friends?

 

I admit I was hurt by someone who unfriended about half of her list and told me she no longer wishes to be friends with anyone she sees in person regularly and only wishes to be friends with those who live too far away and she needs to know what is going on with them via FB.

 

Dawn

 

:grouphug:

 

It sounds like it was a "valid" unfriending, that you weren't the only one, and that it wasn't done personally to you. And she was honest, she could've said she was getting off FB, deleted just you, and then blocked you from seeing her.

 

Possibly she would prefer to keep her face-to-face friendships that way. I wish more of my friends felt the same way; I'd happily unfriend and be unfriended to bring things back the way they were a few years ago!

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Ok, I unfriended a few. They were more like acquaintances, anyway.

 

I like the suggestion to do it gradually, too. I think I'll do a few a week. I may hide others once I figure out how to hide my posts from them.

 

This is so annoying that it makes me want to ditch FB altogether. I really want to keep in touch with high school and college friends, though and a few family members that are on there. <sigh>

 

Thanks for the feedback. :001_smile:

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I tend to hide rather than unfriend people on facebook. I have groups set up for my friend list, and I don't allow everyone to see everything all the time. Facebook is set up now so that you can restrict your status to certain people/groups each time you post, or set up a default (which you can then over-ride at any time).

 

I don't really mind being unfriended by someone unless they go out of the way to announce beforehand that they are going to be culling their friends list and only "special" people are going to make the cut. I find that rude and annoying.

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