Does it bother you when someone deletes you from Social media?

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Chatting with a friend today and we somehow discovered that a mutual contact has deleted DFriend from FB.

DF had no idea that this person had deleted them, or when or why they would have done it. I suggested DF asks the person why they deleted her. DF said she wouldn't give it a second thought as she also deletes people if she feels like it.

I on the other hand would be really bothered by someone randomly deleting me for no apparent reason. Especially since we see this mutual contact on a very regular basis. I doubt I'd be able to feel comfortable in their company again.

Would this bother you? I feel I would want to ask them why they suddenly felt the need to remove me as a 'friend' without any obvious reasoning. DF says I'm over thinking the whole situation.

When you say this is someone you see ‘almost daily’ I’m assuming a school mum, a colleague? So more of an acquaintance, not like a life long friend. I’m with your friend, not bothered at all!

You can't accidentally block someone dude. It's not a single step process.

People know you're lying when you say that.

If it was someone I was friendly with and saw regularly socially yeah I'd be a bit confused.

Your friend says she's not bothered but she did bring it up.

I'm sure I've been deleted by many a person but not anyone I'm close enough to give a shit about.

No it’s totally true I had no clue I’d blocked her and absolutely no reason to she was my friend at work. I was confused and so naive about the workings of Facebook I had to get her to show me what I’d done and was happy to undo it
not everyone is tech savvy
and I may have been fiddling about with it - who knows ? but 200% genuine - I certainly don’t need to lie to you do I 😄
if my inLaws ever asked me to my face I would lie and pretend it was an error

There's also the aspect of pre-recruitment social media checks. It's not always just the applicant's postings that are looked at - the friends who share opinions and tag people, the photos or comments, can also give a potentially negative impression. Blocking them means that a search won't bring up an association with Tommy Robinson is a top bloke, muslims need to have pig heads on their doors, all vaccines are mind control, Kemi Badenoch is an evil monster and it's a foreign plot, the Pope is the Antichrist, TERFs need to be killed, look at my poledancing routine, here be snakes, DM me hun, I am a SOVEREGN CITIZEN and I DO NOT CONSENT, what a lovely bit of blow that was, we were caning it that night, weren't we? My boss is a cunt!!!!!!!!!! types.

So it might not even be you, it could be somebody else that's led to a block.

I’d have just thought that actually other people have their own lives and their own problems that every don’t advertise on the internet or publicly at all so I would take it from them not contacting me when I got out of hospital that they too had life going on and not everything is about me! The person you were surprised at - did you ever contact them and ask how THEY were? Maybe they had something major going on with their family and they didn’t have the brain space to think about anyone else other than their family member? Or they were just exhausted with life? Very selfish attitude to assume everyone should be messaging you 🤷‍♀️ 🙄

I’d be curious if it was a close friend/family member, with no immediately obvious reason. Otherwise, I couldn’t care.

I agree with this. It can be comforting to have well wishes sent to you and some people find some strength from that so I understand pp’s disappointment about not having that.
But we just don’t know what other people are going through. I quietly went through a massive health scare which involved surgery and nobody on social media knew about it. I barely went on social media at the time and all honesty selfishly I had no headspace for other people as much as I would never want anything bad to happen to my fiends. If one of my friends went through something at the same time as I did and posted it on social media to gain support (understandable) I could have easily been accused of being one of those friends who ignored them and didn’t care which would be far from the truth but I was in such a daze in my own little world for that period of time fearing the worst that the rest of the world outside my family just sort of disappeared if that makes sense.

Millions of people

No, wouldn’t bother me, unless it was a very good friend, on which case I’d ask. An acquaintance, no issues. But then, I also have regular culls; of people who post too much, people who post about policies or Palestine etc.

Out of interest,

1. why would you tell one person that another had unfriended her ?
2. How would you have noticed that in the first place ?

I generally don't care. I've unfriended people I don't speak to. One of those people pestered me to find out why I'd unfriended him. He, apart from when he was begging me to go somewhere and ignoring me saying I can't get there, never actually talked to me

I did unfriend someone I met in a Facebook group. She noticed that I'd gone quiet and was apparently concerned about me. A pity she wasn't that concerned about the abelist bullshit she'd constantly say to me. I had to block her because she'd comment on everything I'd post on the group we were a member of

Wow, this is really odd behaviour

It used to bother me a lot but now I barely even notice

I don't think I'd notice (but I don't do Facebook - is it obvious on there?).
People are all different, so I might stop following someone who (say) was constantly posting political opinions very different to mine - that doesn't mean that I don't like them, or don't still have contact with them.

I don't even follow my husband on social media, nor he me. We have different interests, plus we live in the same house, so what would be the point? 🤣

Social media isn't real life, OP, it doesn't matter.

This happened to me recently. IRL friend and I hadn’t been in touch much in recently months. I thought I hadn’t heard from her in a while (or seen any updates as she used to post a great deal on Facebook) to find she’s blocked me. Our friendship had been off for a while, I’m sure we both felt it but the blocking feels so final. We’d been friends for over 10 years. So I guess I’m a bit sad but I’ll get over it.

It would definitely bother me if I was deleted by someone I need to see on a regular basis. Especially if there was no obvious reason for it

Bit radical, but could you not...um...ask them then?

I have no idea if people delete me or not. Can't say I pay much attention to social media these days.

I wouldn’t even notice tbh.

FB is such an utter bastard to use nowadays that it would probably be months before I realised if someone had deleted me, as opposed to the stupid algorithms just not showing me anything they'd posted in preference to showing me posts by people I have never met and don't know six months after they've posted.

In the highly unlikely event that I noticed at all, then no it wouldn’t bother me unless it were a very close friend AND accompanied by a ‘real life’ unfriending in which case I’d probably ask if I’d upset them somehow.

I doubt I would even notice. It wouldn't bother me if I did notice. Social media doesn't bother me and I set no store by it really.

Not so far. 2 formerly close friends have unfriended me. One of them messaged me, telling me I was 'opinionated'. That was because she is a far-right anti-vaxxer, animal-rights activist, immigrant hater (even though both her parents are immigrants) and gun owner (she is American) and she used to post about all these things and I sometimes used to comment with a link to factually correct information. especially on her anti vax posts during the pandemic. She did not used to hold these opinions, in fact she was surprisingly left-wing for an American and even liked reading The Guardian. I was quite relieved that she dumped me.

Another old friend who had slightly similar views but nowhere near as extreme unfollowed me. I sometimes put a counter argument on some of her posts too. She unfriended me silently and I couldn't ask her why because I have no other contact details for her. I was surprised but not bothered. We were extremely close but I last saw her about 30 years ago.

I on the other hand unfollowed someone who was until recently a close friend. I did it because she told me she found my holiday snaps upsetting because it reminds her she can't afford to go abroad. But she also used to constantly tell me that she hardly ever looks at social media any more, which I never actually believed. I unfriended her one afternoon and early the following morning she texted me to ask why we were no longer friends. She was very upset. I told her it was to protect her from my 'upsetting' holiday photos.

Back my 20s I did unfollow /unfriend some real life friends. The reasons would usually fit a theme of their posts just not making me feel good.

For example, old work colleagues who would all go on nights out together constantly. I had left that workplace and couldn't expect to be invited to every night out but just didn't enjoy the FOMO. Another example would be those who constantly post their travels and nights out etc, fun when you do hang with them but just too intense on social media.

It turns out some of them did have the app a pp referred to above and it led to a fall out 😂😂. It was just about my mental health and what I want to see on my social media though not about not liking them.

I think you can usually press a button to see less of them which is a bit easier not sure if that existed at the time. I did use that recently for an old uni friend who constantly puts up videos of her pole dancing she isn't very good or sexy. After a few years of watching the videos and internally cringing I decided I just don't fancy seeing them anymore...

I asked if DF had seen the event that the other person had posted about. The event somewhat concerns all 3 of us.

DF said they had not seen the post and went on FB to find it. This was when they discovered they had deleted DF