Cutting people out of your life due to lack of tolerance for their behaviour and/or views

[AuADHD]

I am very black and white in my thinking which has an impact on this but I’m wondering if anyone else has similar trouble with friendships.
I have a handful of “friends” on Facebook. They aren’t really friends but I have a very much long time ago ex (because he posts amazing photos of where he lives and his holidays with his wife and I find their relationship really wholesome), the partner of my son’s half brother, and people who never post who I know from long ago.

I’ve found myself less tolerant lately of anything that I fundamentally disagree with. Often political in nature and tends to be memes that demonstrate a lack of critical thinking and a tendency to be one of the cool kids. Turkeys voting for Christmas kind of thing. Not Brexit.

I can’t be doing with it and find I don’t want these people on my Facebook but I worry about unfriending them.

I enjoy Facebook for keeping up with my special interests and cat reels. A doom scroll of cat and special interest reels gives me a much needed boost. I don’t enjoy Facebook being full of brainless memes or attention seeking posts.

I find I just want to cut people off. There’s no grey area. It’s just a straight up nope, you and I have nothing in common and I don’t want your crap on my feed. We are fundamentally very different people and your viewpoints are harmful to millions of people.

Can anyone relate? Do you ruthlessly unfriend people? Snooze them? Unfollow? How do you manage these situations? They are not people I see in day to day life so I suppose it doesn’t matter but I’ve been told my whole life how unreasonable I am that I worry so much about things like this.

I unfollow a lot of people. If I feel the need to check up on whether they've changed at some point (very occasionally happens) I'll find them in my friend list and have a quick stalk, then back to being happily ignored for the rest of time.

Yes, I can relate. After ex-wife ditched me for someone else, I just cancelled my FB account. Haven't missed it.

@AuADHD Is it to do with “unwanted noise”? I have a tiny Facebook presence. All the nonsense and “friend suggestions” and endless AI stuff drives me mad. I used to go on Twitter a lot but not since its takeover. I find these sites too intrusive/invasive now.

@Matsukaze I have tried to delete my Facebook page but can’t do it!! It just keeps coming back and it’s so upsetting to see me “still there” Do tell…

Also @AuADHD Black & white thinking isn’t a bad thing. Helps to cut through all the crap. Facebook is the “small talk” I don’t do well, all the irrelevant stuff (to me at least) that I’d avoid socially in real life 😊

I think Facebook and its lists of ‘friends’ hits a misnomer issue.

Friend is a verb really. What is a friend? It’s not someone you used to know who’s given you access to snoop at their photos and presentation of the best parts of their lives.

A friendship involves regular check-ins, intimacy, shared experiences, care, love, joy, respect, shared humour etc. I think ‘social’ media has done something very bad by interfering with our shared understanding of the meaning of the word ‘friend’.

I think your ‘black and white thinking’ as you phrased it, is simply because online platforms are very binary / black and white spaces not reflective of real life in any way.

You’re not going to have to have the person you’ve ‘unfriended’ and explain why they aren’t your friend anymore are you? It’s just a name on a list of people who don’t really know you warts and all. You don’t care about them much, nor they you. Not much is lost.