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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think blocking and deleting me is stupid

187 replies

trafficlightschanging · 18/12/2015 15:38

An old friend has deleted me and blocked me from Facebook!

Context is - she changed her profile picture and I commented it reminded me of a time at university. Went to message her later and she'd gone! I logged in as my sister and she's still on Facebook but I've been removed as a friend and blocked.

I've asked her and she says I'm always going on about university and she finds it embarrassing?

OP posts:
Blarblarblar · 20/12/2015 20:08

I have an old friend OP who sees me as the same wild girl I was when I was a kid. She was always very well behaved. 25 years on I found it so humiliating that she would introduce me to new people with stories of my antics or comment constantly on the embarrassing things I'd done. I would front it out but it was not nice and it didn't feel like she did it from a place of fun but a way to put me in my place.
Maybe you did it in uni and it hurt her so reminding her makes her feel small. Have an honest look at your reasons for throwing it up.
It's sad when friendships end but sometimes they do.

Stormtreader · 21/12/2015 11:22

Sounds like any reinventing of herself was done over 10 years ago, and its only you that doesn't seem to have noticed.

LagunaBubbles · 21/12/2015 11:47

I am baffled why you think someone should remain friends with you, or to have any contact with you if she doesn't want to. She doesn't have to justify her reasons, you can't force someone to remain friends. I am sure you have other friends so there's no need to cling on to this one

Im beginning to feel a bit sorry for the OP now with replies just as this, strikes me as being nasty for nasty sake. The OP has NEVER said this person SHOULD remain friends for a start! And I would defy anyone not to be curious about why a friend would suddenly block you, its human nature. Yes the OP might have been irritating, tactless etc. And she has never said she is trying to cling on to anyone.

Do people read something different based on their own issues, probably.

Anotherusername1 · 21/12/2015 12:09

It all seems a bit strange to me. And embarrassing to talk about the past at a birthday party? I wouldn't find it embarrassing, although I might find it a bit irritating if somebody continually reminisced and in so doing excluded me and others from the conversation. But that would be for the hostess (ie the birthday girl in this instance) to deal with and move the conversation on.

I don't think you can really judge - the odd comment here and there would seem pretty harmless. Comments every week on FB, not so much. We don't have enough information to judge, although that never stopped anyone on MN.

Anyway for what it's worth OP I've been blocked by two ex-colleagues on LinkedIn and I haven't done anything at all either on LinkedIn or in RL! One may have blocked me because she sent me a LI message I didn't reply to, so she might have taken offence at that, but the other one is utterly bizarre, as I've had no contact with her at all. People behave strangely on social media.

Devilishpyjamas · 21/12/2015 12:24

Agree people behave strangely on social media. One person seems to have unfollowed me because I posted a photo of one of my kids. A nice photo of him, in beautiful countryside, nothing embarrassing, but she said I hadn't asked his permission. (He has never spoken to her in his life). It was really odd. She went from commenting on my posts all the time to utter silence (so clearly unfollowed). I'm still trying to work that one out!!

icanteven · 21/12/2015 12:24

I was utterly miserable at school - unhappy, self-conscious, awkward - and I was badly bullied and excluded.

If I was now FB friends with somebody from school (presumably not somebody who bullied me, obviously) whose only context for me was our time together in school and who kept bringing up things from then, however innocuous, I would drop her like a hot cake, ESPECIALLY the non-events that you are bringing up. I do NOT want to be reminded about school, and if I ever took a notion to reconnect with somebody from then, it would be very tentatively, just in case this very sort of interaction came out of it.

It's not your fault as such, OP. Your friend has some baggage from college that belongs to her and her alone, although you ought to have picked up on what she does and does not like talking about by now, really. As you clearly haven't been close since graduation, it's hardly the end of the world that you are now no longer friends on FB, and speaking as somebody who ENTIRELY gets where she is coming from, I'm impressed that she had the nerve (in a good way) to articulate her reasons to you so clearly.

Redskyatnight01 · 21/12/2015 12:44

Blimey, some nasty responses on here.

OP, IMO your friend has overreacted. Simply unfriending you if she felt the need would've been fine, she didn't really need to block you too, that implies she didn't want you to know she'd unfriended you because it would’ve hurt your feelings. Well, it would’ve hurt your feelings less if she’d have messaged you after the times you had annoyed her and said very bluntly that you have, NOT to mention uni again and if you do, the friendship will cease.

I don’t think mentioning her dying a top pink or losing her phone is that nasty FGS. Urgh, she sounds over sensitive, neurotic and hard work, you’re better off out of it. We ALL reminisce about the past with our friends, granted not all the time but it is a normal thing to do occasionally.

Maybe she just finds that you don’t have anything in common anymore, which is fine, but in that case I would’ve just put you on limited profile so you couldn’t see status updates etc rather than unfriending and blocking you.

Redskyatnight01 · 21/12/2015 12:45

Also, this is why I much prefer male company to female company. Women are so prissy and sensitive. I cannot imagine a man behaving in the same way, can you?

MrsBalustradeLanyard · 21/12/2015 12:51

Recently I broke my phone. I mentioned it to my friend, who said 'God, you've never changed, you must have broken your phone about 10 times now.'

I've done it once before, in 2008.

Do you know why that's so annoying? A tiny incident being used as 'evidence' that you're still that feckless, careless, immature person you were years ago? She wants to grow up, and you keep harping on about the child that she was.

CarriesBucketOfBlood · 21/12/2015 13:05

Really really poor form on the part of your ex friend.
Reminiscing is a part of human relationships, especially between people who don't see each other often enough to form many new experiences.

What the OP spoke about would certainly not be embarrassing to me. Dying a top is just something you do at that age that seems silly when you look back on it.

OP, your friend has cut you out and that's a really shitty thing to do. It doesn't seem like you deserved it to me. On the other hand, don't degrade yourself by chasing the friendship too much. Move on, head up, and look forward to a hopefully great Christmas and new relationships being formed in the new year.

Sameshitdiffname · 21/12/2015 13:06

Sorry but she seems like a crank

LibrariesgaveusP0wer · 21/12/2015 13:09

Also, this is why I much prefer male company to female company. Women are so prissy and sensitive. I cannot imagine a man behaving in the same way, can you?

What a ridiculously misogynistic generalisation.

Orrla · 21/12/2015 13:15

Sounds like you took the piss out of things she did in Uni and are still doing it, decades later, in front of her friends on FB.

Sameshitdiffname · 21/12/2015 13:22

Orrla where did that come from

Mince314 · 21/12/2015 13:25

I agree with libraries
Although, in my opinion there are women who prefer male company not because of the company but because that company is male. And then they give themselves a pat on the back for that. Confused

Orrla · 21/12/2015 13:30

Orrla where did that come from

From what the OP's friend said; OP slagged her off on FB for breaking her phone, for dying a top pink, stands to reason those two were just two examples of behaviour the friend was ultimately sick of and why she was defriended and blocked.

I think the friend made it very clear to the OP how the comments make her feel. But the OP has decided she's overreacting. So either she's a drama queen who OP is better off without, or she is a friend who has tried on a few occasions to tell the OP how she feels and was ignored. Either way, the friendship isnt working.

Redskyatnight01 · 21/12/2015 13:30

What a ridiculously misogynistic generalisation.

Is it? Judging by the 100s of replies the OP has had on here, from female posters who have basically said 'I'd have done the same OP, I don't want to keep being reminded of my uni days.' or 'I'd have blocked you too, mentioning her dying a top and losing a phone, tsk tsk.' and other things along those lines doesn't help the view I already have that women tend to be more prissy and sensitive than men.

I am definitely quiet laid back (though must admit, someone who CONSTANTLY only talked about my drunken debauchers past would irritate and offend me after a while, but then I would just slowly phase them out of my life, not unfriend and block!) and it would take more than someone mentioning me losing a phone or dying a top pink to make me unfriend and block them on FB!

Mince314 · 21/12/2015 13:33

If men don't tolerate behaviours that they don't like, that's allowed

If a woman steps back from somebody whose comments she isn't comfortable with then she's a bitch or typically female or whatever. Nonsense. Men get to cut people off and they do. But it's called not tolerating crap then probably. Or it's not commented on.

LibrariesgaveusP0wer · 21/12/2015 13:35

Redsky - That's called confirmation bias. There are so many holes in your argument that I'm not even going to go there. Essentially, you've decided you don't like women. Your loss. But it's misogynistic in the extreme.

Mince314 · 21/12/2015 13:38

Exactly.

There's a man in my office and he is quite bitchy I've realised. If something good happens he'll cut you down at the knees. If you do well in an exam he'll try and expose some gap in your knowledge elsewhere. But his bitchiness goes completely unnoticed.

EvaBING · 21/12/2015 13:51

I think she is being a little melodramatic! I often go over 'old times' with friends who I've known a long time.

I'd be mightily peed off if my friend said to me 'will you shut up about such and such!'
Realistically, we 'relive' the hilarity of the good old days!
It seems you didn't realise that it was such an unhappy time for her. Nor that she doesn't like recalling uni.
It seems like you guys aren't really compatible as friends any more. So, just forget about her!

Redskyatnight01 · 21/12/2015 13:52

I do like women actually, I am a girly girl and have more female friends than male friends and enjoy company of both. However, for me, there has always been less drama and bitchiness surrounding my male friends. I can't say why, there just has.

If one of my friends was deliberately being nasty and rude to me, then of course, I would cease the friendship. Everyone has the right to be friends with whomever they chose for whatever reason. Now we may not know the full story, but if the OP is telling the truth and she has just mentioned uni a few times in conversation etc and relayed a couple of old stories, it seems like a massive overreaction to unfriend and block her without an explanation first.

None of us know the full story, however I wouldn't ditch any of my friends because I was sensitive to a couple of comments they made, I'd like to think I'm a better friend and a nicer person than that. And if I WAS going to do so, I would speak to them about it first, no it wouldn't change the outcome if I was insistent on ditching them, but it may make them more aware in future with other friendships. This girl has done this, but only when the OP asked for an explanation which I just think is a bit cruel and nasty.

Men, IME (before you go getting all het up) tend to be more black and white and straight down the line, if someone says something that has annoyed them, made them feel uncomfortable etc, they will say there and then 'You're bang out of line' and go from there...women, again IME don't so much, they sit and stew over it, make it a big drama and then there's a massive falling out.

LibrariesgaveusP0wer · 21/12/2015 14:02

Assuming what you've said is correct (though again, I think you want to observe that) you don't think that, just maybe, that is to due with cultural conditioning about the appropriate behaviour around emotions in men and women? About the acceptability in direct behaviour from women? About how women are expecting to be tolerant and smooth over the ridges.

So, you calling women "prissy and sensitive" is really just blaming them for living in the world we live in.

Also, you are backtracking. The latest post is you like women, have lots of female friends and enjoy the company of both. The first was that you far preferred male company and women were prissy. Make your mind up.

Redskyatnight01 · 21/12/2015 14:11

I do prefer the company of males. I have more female friends than male friends though (males sometimes have an agenda and in the last few years have found it hard to form solid, long lasting male friendships) and I enjoy the company of both, even if I do prefer one to the other in general.

My 3 best female friends are all very straight and direct, thankfully.

Obviously I am weird, because I wouldn't treat someone the way this person has treated the OP unless they had done something nasty and unkind. I also wouldn't be as nasty and unkind to a poster on here as some of the posters have either. Totally uncalled for.

Sameshitdiffname · 21/12/2015 14:16

If that's slagging off I'm shocked