How were you unfriended before Facebook?
Years ago, we had a couple that essentially uninvited us to their wedding, but honestly we were thankful. They sucked and were a mess of a couple. As for unfriending on FB, I have only done this once when I realized that a girl I was friends with from high school was posting lots of conservative/religious anti-gay propaganda and I decided I didn't need to have that be a part of my "FB" experience. It was also the catalyst for me essentially leaving FB. People have no problem posting all sorts of stuff they wouldn't dare say at a dinner party or in mixed company. Strange.
At one point in the last century, one of my best female friends dumped me like this: She gathered everything I had ever given her or lent her or left in her apartment (books, clothes, presents). She brought it all to a cafe where I was having coffee with a friend and dumped everything on the table, quite officially and publically unfriending me.
I'm happy to say that after 20 years, she is now a best friend again. I just checked definitions of "friend" and "Facebook friend" on Urban Dictionary. Most of the definitions of "Facebook Friend" include the idea that you generally have no connection with them in real life. - I know this isn't always the case, but I imagine being "unfriended" on FB would have less impact than the cafe dumping above.
I think just about anything would have less of an impact than getting everything you ever gave someone dumped on a table in a coffee shop ;-)She brought it all to a cafe where I was having coffee with a friend and dumped everything on the table, quite officially and publically unfriending me. I'm happy to say that after 20 years, she is now a best friend again.
-This btw, falls in the category of something women would do but men never would. I realize this sounds sexist, but it's just true. For all of the sensitivities that women are reported to have and men lack, I see far more functionality in male friendships. Maybe just my perspective...?
Frankly, I think unfriending on Facebook is quite necessary and not at all degenerative. I don't see why we have to keep the customs of the past when we are not living in the past. Back in the days when post mails and face to face time were the only means of communication, all you had to do was confront the person and you were done, you have cut all available connection and communication with that human being. It was easy to cut someone out of your life. Now days it gets much harder with cell phones, emails, skype, gchat, facebook, linkedin, forums.... It requires much more effort and courage to cut someone out. People move to different cities and countries, addresses change, cell phones change. Facebook is almost the only stable and reliable source to keep in touch with a friend. So in this modern age, unfriending on Facebook is an important first step toward "he's dead to me."
That was funny. I can't say I've really been in a position to tell someone that I don't want to be friends any longer. I usually just ignore people I don't like and it all kind of works out. A girl I dated in my pre-facebook college days lived with three other girls in a house together. They were all buddies, but there was one girl the others really disliked without her ever being aware of how they felt. When the group graduated and moved on to jobs in cities, they all maintained steady friendships. For the one girl though, contact became all one sided. She would call and visit and try to hangout. The others would oblige with mild hesitation and without any emotional reciprocation. Finally, they had had enough and decided to collectively write her a letter stating that they, all three, were no longer interested in maintaining a friendship. That was that. On a side note: I can imagine if I were still in grade school how important my facebook status and friend count would probably be to me. Fortunately, I'm in my thirties and don't put that much stock into any of it. People can unfriend me all day long and I wouldn't bat an eye. I also do friend randoms from the past, but will not hesitate to delete someone's feed if they're buggin. I basically use my FB account as a kind of phone book. I can get in touch with people if need be, but it isn't an end to my social activity, just another means.