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Fbook - I want to unfriend all old school friends

20 replies

gowiththeflow2025 · 11/03/2025 09:45

School was 30 years ago. I am friends with a lot of people I knew at school. These were people I went to infant/junior/secondary school with, but I didn't necessarily hang around with them in secondary (I wasn't 'cool' enough for some of them <roll eyes>). I have nothing to do with them now, no malice. Some of then I can pass in the street, I recognise them and go to say hello and they just walk straight pass.

But for some reason I cannot bring myself to defriend them, Why ?

for some reason I need to know what is going in in their lives, what they are doing now and in the future and how well they have (have not!) aged.

OP posts:
SoManyTeeth · 11/03/2025 09:47

Maybe you could unfollow them all, knowing it's reversible and that if you particularly want to, you can actively look them up to find out what's going on for them. Then, after a while, once you've got used to not being automatically fed the stories of these people you don't really know any more, you could unfriend, if you want.

wknobur · 11/03/2025 10:33

You can add the school friends to your restricted list (google how to do that as I have forgotten) and that means they won't be able to see your posts. I have had to do that with a couple of people. One in particular was causing me a bit of distress with her comments on my post (I won't go into the details). I didn't want to completely unfriend her but restricting her has solved the problem.
Then, as the other poster says, unfollow them and their posts won't appear in your feed. You'll have to actively click on their profile to have a look at what they are doing.

However, I would defriend anyone who passed me in the street and didn't even greet me.

Kittenswhiskers · 11/03/2025 10:35

im tempted to delete the whole thing as it’s such a time drain

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DrivingThePlot · 11/03/2025 10:38

Delete Facebook for a month. Then see who you missed and who you didn't. Unfriend the ones you didn't miss.

theressomanytinafeysicouldbe · 11/03/2025 10:49

I go on facebook but thinking of deleting it, it's all adverts, stupid irrelevant pages that pop up, scam advert and for me mainly low fat recipes by several fitness influencers that i looked at once and that I never use. I rarely see posts anymore from actual people I know. I am in my late 40's, is there something else people use these days, or do people just persevere with all the crap

BarneyRonson · 11/03/2025 10:54

I have a friend who snoops on fb and social media generally. I just noticed she has friended my best friend, who she doesn’t really know, and is commenting on my friends husbands posts too! I feel very invaded and irritated but honestly can’t imagine hot to mention it, as it’s really so cringe, what she’s doing. I don’t really understand it but I do feel my boundaries are being crossed!

Radiatorvalves · 11/03/2025 11:00

I had a miserable time in sixth form, almost 40 years ago…. I’m fb friends with about 2 people from that school. Some others have invited me… but why? They didn’t bother with me at school. I deleted the invitations.

Psychostates · 11/03/2025 11:06

I'm not on Facebook, I believe it is utterly pointless, unless you live abroad and are trying to find old friends. Good friends, and people that are worth staying in touch with, you have the mobile numbers of.

Facebook just depresses most people because they're scrolling through and looking at the lives of others, and then comparing their own. People usually post all of this exciting stuff they're doing, when in actuality it is done over a much longer spaced out period of time, and made to look a lot better than it is. Some people live their lives on it, looking for likes to make them feel secure, and some recording their every move; it is crazy to me.

godmum56 · 11/03/2025 11:18

I have no idea why you can't do it. Why do you think you can't?

Topseyt123 · 11/03/2025 11:19

I rarely use FB much these days and haven't for years. I tend to just use it to look up the local residents' groups in our town as it does seem to be where they all post about what is going on in the town.

Other than that, I don't use it much anymore and I don't miss it at all.

It sounds like you have nothing in common with these people, so I'd unfriend them. They probably won't even notice, and neither will you.

godmum56 · 11/03/2025 11:20

theressomanytinafeysicouldbe · 11/03/2025 10:49

I go on facebook but thinking of deleting it, it's all adverts, stupid irrelevant pages that pop up, scam advert and for me mainly low fat recipes by several fitness influencers that i looked at once and that I never use. I rarely see posts anymore from actual people I know. I am in my late 40's, is there something else people use these days, or do people just persevere with all the crap

I have a group of friends on there and a few groups I am on....book fans, crafting and that kind of thing. I keep my profile buttoned up and use Fluff busting purity to chop out the ads (doesn't work on phones)

SoManyTeeth · 11/03/2025 11:39

Kittenswhiskers · 11/03/2025 10:35

im tempted to delete the whole thing as it’s such a time drain

I felt like that, but a few years ago I went to university, and despite wanting to get rid of the distraction of Facebook so I could study better, I found I pretty much had to stay on there.

So much everyday organisation of groups and clubs, and even just general admin and social/convenience stuff at all levels (cancellations/changes to events, useful info, even things like people asking whether anyone in such-and-such accommodation had a DVD player/set of batteries/giant saucepan they could borrow), was being done primarily via Facebook. I'd have been totally out of the loop without it. Before I started the degree, I was on FB for the usual keeping up with family and friends purposes, but wasn't really involved in anything where I needed Facebook to stay up to date with info/events. I wonder how much of FB's total membership might be people who felt they pretty much had to join, rather than particularly wanting to (though I guess maybe after that, some of them get drawn into using Facebook for other things, too).

It's a critical mass thing, I suppose… the more people use a platform, the more other people will be likely to join, and once a certain percentage of people are using a particular platform it might become the go-to or even sole method of remote communication for particular RL groups, at least for some aspects. So basically, everyone almost has to sign up, if they want to be involved in groups or activities whose members use FB to communicate.

I find it frustrating, because there are alternatives to signing up for all the restrictions and drawbacks of a proprietary platform, and have been for a long time — you can set up a website, or run a mailing list, or in some circumstances use an actual physical noticeboard, or any of the other ways people might keep in touch and stay up to date without Facebook. But once enough people are signed up, the convenience of Facebook means that those other methods wither away, and if you're the awkward one who's not on FB, you can hardly expect people to remember to phone or email, or pin things to a board, just for you.

It's also frustrating to me that so much online discussion has moved to FB — there are one or two specialist forums I can think of off the top of my head which in recent years have become online ghost towns or just disappeared altogether, because everyone's decamped to Facebook groups. I get it — the infrastructure is all there, it's free, you don't have to administer a whole forum, everyone's already got a login, and so on. But it means you're providing data and ad revenue to an enormous tech company which can arbitrarily control or remove anything it wants. And you lose the benefits of anonymity, too. Anonymity does have its drawbacks, especially with things like antisocial behaviour and accountability, but it also has benefits. People can feel freer to speak their mind than they would if their words were linked to their real name (and probably a picture of them, too). And there's also something different about interacting with people through text alone and under their chosen usernames, without people's personal characteristics (age, sex, race, nationality, accent, disability) necessarily being evident, for the most part, unless they choose to share them. (Though some things may still come through in text, like language differences, cognitive differences, literacy, cultural differences etc.)

Anyway, yeah, I had to get rid of the distraction so I could study, but needed to stay on FB to stay informed about real-life stuff, so I unfollowed all my friends for the duration. After that, my feed was so incredibly dull (ads, "boomer humour" type cartoons, clickbaity neverending reels, ancient Calvin and Hobbes strips, etc. etc.) that I wasn't remotely tempted to waste hours scrolling and scrolling Grin

Edit: after I graduated, I re-followed the few people whose updates I was actually interested in, but none of them seem to ever post anything anyway… maybe we've all quiet-quit FB?

gowiththeflow2025 · 11/03/2025 11:44

@BarneyRonson I have a friend who snoops on fb and social media generally. I just noticed she has friended my best friend, who she doesn’t really know, and is commenting on my friends husbands posts too! I feel very invaded and irritated but honestly can’t imagine hot to mention it, as it’s really so cringe, what she’s doing. I don’t really understand it but I do feel my boundaries are being crossed!

I have been in similar situations. I know someone who has a fake profile to search/snoop on others without appearing on anyone's 'people you might know'. There have also been situations where some friends have befriended my friends on facebook, but they don't even know my friend(s). I am uncomfortable with this and feel it's a huge invasion of my privacy.

I would like to delete FB completely but I use FB messenger quite a bit. And I have this FOMO for people I never see/don't want to see (ie the old school friends) and for some reason knowing what they are doing.

OP posts:
JitterbugFairy · 11/03/2025 11:50

I had a good FB clearout last year of all friends Inc school friends. I came to the conclusion,as childish as it might sound,that those who didn't wish me happy birthday or offer sympathy or even a sad face,when my dog died,I deleted. Not regretted it.

godmum56 · 11/03/2025 13:25

gowiththeflow2025 · 11/03/2025 11:44

@BarneyRonson I have a friend who snoops on fb and social media generally. I just noticed she has friended my best friend, who she doesn’t really know, and is commenting on my friends husbands posts too! I feel very invaded and irritated but honestly can’t imagine hot to mention it, as it’s really so cringe, what she’s doing. I don’t really understand it but I do feel my boundaries are being crossed!

I have been in similar situations. I know someone who has a fake profile to search/snoop on others without appearing on anyone's 'people you might know'. There have also been situations where some friends have befriended my friends on facebook, but they don't even know my friend(s). I am uncomfortable with this and feel it's a huge invasion of my privacy.

I would like to delete FB completely but I use FB messenger quite a bit. And I have this FOMO for people I never see/don't want to see (ie the old school friends) and for some reason knowing what they are doing.

if you have FOMO that is a you problem not a SM problem.

SoScarletItWas · 11/03/2025 13:27

Mute them for a month and see if you feel better/worse/indifferent.

Wendolino · 11/03/2025 13:33

wknobur · 11/03/2025 10:33

You can add the school friends to your restricted list (google how to do that as I have forgotten) and that means they won't be able to see your posts. I have had to do that with a couple of people. One in particular was causing me a bit of distress with her comments on my post (I won't go into the details). I didn't want to completely unfriend her but restricting her has solved the problem.
Then, as the other poster says, unfollow them and their posts won't appear in your feed. You'll have to actively click on their profile to have a look at what they are doing.

However, I would defriend anyone who passed me in the street and didn't even greet me.

I'm not sure if it's changed but a couple of years ago I put someone I'd worked with on the restricted list (he was a nice man but made really boring, "funny" comments about every post) but it made no difference. I thought he must be actively searching my newsfeed. If it's changed it's a good thing.

wknobur · 11/03/2025 17:21

Wendolino · 11/03/2025 13:33

I'm not sure if it's changed but a couple of years ago I put someone I'd worked with on the restricted list (he was a nice man but made really boring, "funny" comments about every post) but it made no difference. I thought he must be actively searching my newsfeed. If it's changed it's a good thing.

In theory if they are on the restricted list they can't see any of your posts any more, even if they click on your profile. It has worked for me but sometimes it can be a bit fiddly to make sure you really do have them restricted.
One of the people I put on restricted sounds similar to yours. Every single post, some supposedly hilarious comment. Other friends noticed it too.

Wendolino · 11/03/2025 17:43

wknobur · 11/03/2025 17:21

In theory if they are on the restricted list they can't see any of your posts any more, even if they click on your profile. It has worked for me but sometimes it can be a bit fiddly to make sure you really do have them restricted.
One of the people I put on restricted sounds similar to yours. Every single post, some supposedly hilarious comment. Other friends noticed it too.

Yes it's very annoying! In the end, when I retired, I just unfriended him. I felt really bad when he died not long after.

Gardenyear · 11/03/2025 18:20

I have some old schoolfriends on FB I haven't seen in decades, but every now and then I do want to contact someone and it makes it easy to do it in an informal way, somehow less daunting than a phone message ot call.

Recent examples are a friend who's been in Aus for 20 years, posting about losing his parents and being home and at a lose end, so I messaged him condolences and we met up to do something we used to do together.

Another friend posted about a blast from our **past band she wanted to see, did anyone want to go, so I went, even though I hadn't seen her in 30+ years.

In both cases, I'm not sure any great friendship will be rekindled, but as I get older and less busy (DC grown up) I find these old connectons more important.

Generally speaking I think FB makes it much easier to maintain light touch contact and means I get to hear about social opportunities that I wouldn't otherwise have.

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