Ex defriended me on Facebook

[Grizzeldaa]

We broke up on good terms 20 years ago. Stayed in touch and met up occasionally for a drink with our group of five housemates from uni. When Facebook became a thing we all became friends. We’ve known each other for a long time and it was nice to keep in touch with them all and see their lives develop. We’re all married with kids now and haven’t met up for several years.

I was reminiscing about something and looked up profiles to see how they were. My ex has defriended me and we have no mutual friends so he has obviously defriended the other three too. I’m confused. We’ve kept in touch for 20 years so why stop now, and even if he defriended me I don’t know why he’d do it to the others.

More than anything I just feel sick. I’m happily married with kids but I feel like I’ve lost part of myself. I feel cut off from my roots if that makes sense. I always thought we’d all stay in touch and have a drink together every now and then. I saw us five being old people together and thought we’d always be in touch. I’m shocked by how bereft and devastated I feel. I want to message him but I guess he doesn’t want to be in touch with me or he wouldn’t have defriended me. I don’t know why, or why now.

I get you op. It may just be Facebook to some but to others it's the only way of staying connected. I have loads of friends I never speak to but I still keep them on Facebook and they keep me. It's a lazy way of staying in touch and that's what it was made for. My close friends WhatsApp me their news & pics.

My uncle deleted me just after my dad died. That really fucking hurt. It felt like he was saying "well now your dads gone there's not really a reason stay in touch. See ya!"

i get you op. It may just be Facebook to some but to others it's the only way of staying connected..

I think people are being a bit disingenuous with the wide eyed faux ‘but it’s FACEBOOK!’ schtick. People aren’t dumb. It’s a statement when someone who you thought was a close friend deletes you. The person has to actively navigate to your profile, click an icon and select ‘delete’. There’s a reason for doing that. It might be way different to the reason OP worries he might have done it, but it isn’t something that just randomly occurs!

It's probably about him, not you. I've known people do a cull when they get married (to avoid awkwardness of people not invited seeing the pics), when they have a baby (to minimise exposure), or when they have health problems.

Sometimes you need to feel less "public" that's all. If it's all of your group it's obviously not personal. Next time you have a meet up, invite him, don't let FB preferences ruin a friendship.

It’s a statement when someone who you thought was a close friend deletes you.

But it's different statements if they delete only you, or a whole group, or their account. I may have missed it, but it's not clear to me which this is.

I go through my friends list fairly regularly and unfriend people I no longer have contact with. I have a friend from school, we live 200 miles apart and I haven't seen her 30 years, but we chat on fb so that's fine. Others I worked with a coupe of years ago, we never comment or 'like' each others posts so I unfriend them.

I want facebook to be full of interesting connections not posts about other people's lives I'm no longer part of. Maybe you uni friend is the same.

More than anything I just feel sick. I’m happily married with kids but I feel like I’ve lost part of myself. I feel cut off from my roots if that makes sense.

But you say you didn't even notice his absence. Sorry to be harsh but it does all sound a bit drama llama-ish.

Or he broke your heart really badly years ago.

I use Facebook to stay loosely connected to school and university people OP, and I enjoy doing that. So, I get why you're upset. I'd be upset if my best mate from sixth form deleted me, even though we last met up in 2014. Same with my first boyfriend. I like being broadly in touch, seeing pics of their kids etc.

I'd email the group. Say how about a pint on [insert a choice of dates dates in February]. See what transpires.

I deleted someone off my Facebook friends list last year. Sometimes I just want to do a bit of FB housekeeping. I like to keep my FB to just a small number of family and close friends.
Still, one person I deleted messaged me hurt as to why I deleted them. I felt awful, but also thought they were a bit weird...I mean I don’t speak to them in real life and rarely communicated over FB. I ended up re-adding them, but hiding all my posts from them, as I felt they were being a bit of an odd bod.
My husband hates Facebook and just deleted his whole friends list. He only didn’t shut his account down as he signs in to Twitter through FB.
FB is a pain to be honest and plenty of people just don’t want to use it anymore.
Don’t take it so personally.

You're holding onto your youth too much. You haven't spoken to this guy in years really, and yet you imagine regularly meeting up with everyone for a pint and reminisce about the old days?

You need to let go of the past. Why does it matter if you no longer have feelings for him? It sounds a bit like you have unresolved issues from the past and are unwilling to let go.