I cleaned up my facebook over a year ago. I went through all my facebook friends, deleted the people that I didn't talk to or have a working, real life relationship with. It was freeing. I didn't feel so weird about posting pictures anymore, because only the people who knew me and were part of my life could see them. I changed all my privacy settings so that you couldn't add me as a friend unless we had friends in common, and all my wall posts and pictures are completely private unless you have permission to view them. If you reached this blog via my facebook page, it is because you are my friend :).
I determined who I would keep and who I wouldn't by history. Have I seen you in the last year? 50 friends gone. Who, out of the people remaining, have I spoken to using facebook in the past three months? Another 25. With the remainder, I asked who am I not inviting to my wedding and why? That took care of the rest of them. I now go through and delete people on a very regular basis. If I am not interested in your life, and you are not interested in mine, you get the boot. That statement takes care of all the exceptions to the first three rules. For example, I have students on there from when I was a youth leader. I don't see or talk to them all the time, but I am interested in their lives, both in what they are doing, and how God is working in them.
But lately I have been struggling with my own convictions. What is the purpose of facebook in my relationships? Maybe it isn't to keep up on someone's life. If it weren't for the fact that I post my blogs to my facebook page, no one would have a super clear idea about what my life is like right now, and even with the blog my thoughts are broad and abstract and not usually based in specific experiences. Maybe more friends would just drum up traffic.
I got all reminiscent last night. I connected with an old friend of mine. We worked together at my first job. He was (and still is) my bro. I adore him. He was one of the people that got the axe in my deletion hay day. I told him yesterday that I wish we had kept in touch, because it would have been a no brainer to have him at my wedding. I looked through his friends, and checked out the pages of some of the other people that I used to work with. I wondered if I should abandon all my convictions about facebook and its uses, and just add all of them, give them a window into my life because I wanted a window into theirs.
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| Friends, not "friends" |
I didn't in the end, knowing that my conscience would eventually get the best of me, more likely sooner than later, and I would unfriend them all over again. But sometimes I wonder if I am missing out on something by being so stringent. I always say that I want to live; live each day to the fullest, do things, say things, make mistakes, apologize, and succeed at whatever I do big or small. Am I not living, or missing out on a part of life because I deny more friend requests than I accept?
A part of me says yes, and another says no. I don't get to see pictures, or hear baby news or engagement stories from all these people. I don't see their lives progress and change from any angle, not even one so limited as facebook. But at the same time, we aren't going to anymore apart of one another's lives by being 'friends'. I think that, at least for now, I will forgo the blog traffic, and just keep the people on there that I want to share life with. But I always wonder if that is the right decision.
-SP
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