to want to remove most of my old school friends from my face book ?

[myrightarmandleg]

they were never true friends at school. I was never part of the 'in' group nor was I ever popular. I am only friends on fbook with these people because I am damn right nosey and want to see what people look like now/what they made of their lives/who has the bigger house lol/what become of them all etc

I desperately want to delete. I don't want to waste another second of my life nosing through their profiles. I don't spend hours doing this, I probably have a nosey once ever few months. But I just cannot bring myself to do it because I would be forever curious what happened to them as we grew older.

Why do I care ? why am I bothered ?

I am 51 btw

I'm 24 and I still have people I went to school with on socials. I barely talk to any but I like seeing how everyone is doing with life/their career.

I think you have to weigh up the downsides of keeping them on there vs the upsides

Downsides - waste of your life scrolling through people you don’t really know or keep up with, possibly negative feelings if reminded of being on the edges at school or if you feel they are doing better or still hanging out together without you etc etc.

Upsides - get to satisfy your nosiness

For me the downsides of following people I know on SM far outweigh the upsides so I don’t do it and never have. I genuinely don’t care what people at school are up to, other than the ones I was friends with and I’m still mostly in touch with them.

Just delete them. I did, long ago.

Why do you care what they’re up to? They’re not in your life, you don’t know them as adults, to all intents and purposes they’re random strangers by now.

And do you really want them snooping at your profile, comparing your house and family holiday to others? I’m guessing not, although it you do then that’s a sign you need to examine yourself and how you get your kicks in life!

Just do it then.

I get this. I have a few people on there who I like to be nosy about or who were nice at school (although we weren't proper friends). A couple of years ago I deleted a couple who randomly liked one of my posts though as they'd never been friends with me at school and I conversely didn't like the idea of them being nosy about me!

I got rid of them all once I had kids. Don’t know these people anymore. I only have my nearest and dearest family and friends.

I did a complete cull of Facebook about ten years ago. I got rid of anyone who wasn’t a current friend or a family member. I have less than 60 friends now but when I share things it’s with people who are interested to se it and I want to see what they are up to

You desperately want to delete them, why?

Are you very unhappy with how your life turned out in comparison?

If them sitting on your friend list is causing you a problem, then just get rid.

But it's possible the problem (whatever it is) will still remain.

@minipie totally agree. I see them all having a reunion and obvs i am not invited. Some of these are people I have known since I was 5, but obviously stopped knowing them when we left school..School was shit for me, some of these people made me feel on the edge of school. Nothing specifically nasty, I just knew I wasn't part of their 'in' group and was subconsciously made to feel that I couldn't join in in anything socially in school, including going to an out of school local club/hang out place that everyone wanted to be seen at /part of. I dropped out in the sixtth form, having never felt welcome enough to go into the sixth form common room, which at the time was THE grown up place to hang out in, not that I ever found out.

@Snickersnack1 I no longer post on fbook and haven't done so for years.

Omg girl delete! 😄😄

Sounds like these people have only ever been a negative influence in your life. Time to erase them from it! Click delete - and that’s it, they will have gone! You will feel so librated!

@FuzzyWuzzyWuzABear I want to delete some of them who specifically made me feel shit at school. Subconsciously they made me feel shit. I have anger over feeling that I wasn't good enough/welcome to go into the sixth form common room. I have anger that a group of friends dropped me at school over an innocent misunderstanding that was out of my control. To be dropped by friends aged 13/14 is huge. I am not fbook friends with the main one who dropped me.

The others never bothered with me at school so I want to delete them too

and yet, and yet .. I want to nose at what they are doing

Delete and move on. Highly recommend not living in the past for better mental health.

I'm curious now what did they do exactly.

If not nosing makes you unhappy and nosing also makes you unhappy and you've held onto all this for what would be over 40 years, have you thought about any kind of therapy?

Personally I'd delete them and move on but I can see it's difficult for you.

I deleted the whole thing because of it 🤣 don’t miss it in the slightest

I have a friend like you. She is on Social Media with a lot of former classmates and spends hours looking at what they are up to. It is making her incredibly unhappy and jealous. She does not focus on what she has. I think she would be way better off if she deleted these people.

I only have one guy I was at school with on my FB. Funny thing is, we weren't particularly matey at school at the time.

The rest are long gone.

Just delete them. They will care a lot less about it than you do but it saves them having someone looking at their posts and having bad feeling.

Your problem seems like it will still exist whether or not you have these people as friends on Facebook.

Teen friendships are difficult and they shift naturally. It’s not healthy to hold bad feeling about a friendship choices made by a bunch of 13 and 14 year olds. The others in the sixth form common room didn’t owe it to you to make you feel welcome. You say yourself they didn’t do anything wrong except have friends who weren’t you. What did you do to seek out others who might have felt excluded to ensure they felt welcome?

I don't think I am jealous of them. One of them offered to meet up a few years ago as we were both due to be in the same town on holiday (UK) at the same time. I never took them up on it. I don't know why. I guess I couldn't be bothered and would we have had anything to talk about after all these years ? someone from our school year died a few years ago, lots of my school friends (or people I was at school with, not necessarily friends) commenting on this person, saying how sad they were they died, remembering good times with this person ... er, I dont recall any of you you being friends with this person what so ever at school. I am clearly wrong and missed out on it all. Another death of someone in our school year and a school friend posting comments which suggests they were related ... I never knew this in all the years, I never saw them hanging around together. I really felt outside the school year circle in so many ways. I blame this as part of why I dropped out. That was 30+ years ago.

Before Social media you wouldn’t have stayed in touch with them, so it’s really pointless having them on your social media. It’s almost like a form of self harm, you are torturing yourself with what they are up to now, seeing them have a reunion and excluding you again and reliving the times they hurt you in the past.
Delete them, life is too short to waste a moment of it on the wrong people.

I deleted people from school and uni a while ago. Unless I had any reason at all to come across them again. Although I use Facebook for hobby groups only now, not for friends

Hi op Im 52 I met a girl two years ago. She wanted to keep contact then nothing after. Was a lesson not to get too involved again. We laughed over school days. But it fizzled out after we met..

What's to be gained? What's it genuinely adding to your life knowing about these non consequential people?

I would advise closing all of it down and using your energies to focus on a hobby so you have something concrete to show for the passage of time.

It seems like you’re picking at the scab that happened when the hurt child was pushed over in the playground. Stick up for that child (you) and delete them.

I completely get the ‘wanting to see how life pans out for them’ but something like an Eastenders addiction is honestly much healthier for you. Or there are novels etc which follow a character through their whole life. That would be a healthy replacement.