Social Media "likes" and friendship

[Jackandthebean]

I know how petty this sounds but just curious as to other people's thoughts. I have a friend who I'm quite close to, or thought. And I always thought we were on the same wave length with most things.

She has complained to me recently about a friend who never "likes" pictures of her children on facebook. I always like my friend's pictures out of a friendship loyalty thing and never really thought much of it.

Anyway, I don't really worry too much about where my likes come from usually- I only post a couple of times a week.

However, as I was looking at some messages I got about my stories recently (I've been travelling with my kids for a few weeks), I noticed how this friend always looks at my stories but never likes anything. I then went through all of my pictures and statuses over the last few months and this friend who has complained to me about another friend who never likes her photographs actually never likes anything of mine!

I know I shouldn't put much stock in Facebook but it's left me a bit flummoxed when she has openly complained about another friend not liking her posts when she actually never likes mine. She posts regularly and up until a few days ago I always "liked" everything out of loyalty to her but haven't since. I wouldn't mind if she wasn't seeing my posts/stories but she clearly is. She will also make comments about things she's seen on my page- more recently a debate I had with someone about a political thing. She saw it all and agreed with me verbally- so why not back me up on social media?

I'm always there for her when she has an argument with her husband and she'll often call me for advice when she falls out with someone. She's well thought of by a lot of people and has a lot of friends so I've no idea why she might be disregarding me on social media and not "liking" anything I share when it's something she herself hates her friends doing.

Is it me or is this a bit weird? Do you think that, deep down, she doesn't really like me when she puts so much stock in friends "liking" her stuff?

I honestly couldn’t give this a second thought. Clicking a button on SM has no relationship to friendship. Do you even like this woman? None of what you say about her makes her sound particularly nice, or as if your friendship is particularly sustaining to you.

I'm not sure but I have a friend who is the same, she never 'likes' anything I post. Hey, I've just been on the Armageddon thread so we can all be a bit frivolous and deep the next minute. It's ok to be puzzled by stuff that isn't of really world shattering importance

I used to value my friendship with her a lot @Bukhara but over the last 2 years or so, I have noticed that it's often quite one sided. Her issues are always massive and she doesn't really have time to hear about mine. I'll get photographs on whatsapp of what she's doing at times, but if I respond with similar, I get nothing back. But she is also very busy- running a lucrative business and bringing up 3 children and her husband is pretty dreadful so she has a lot on her plate. I get that she's busy, but then she expects lots of likes, ooooos and wows when she sends photos of her kids or work. She'll come to my house to tell me all about it sometimes and totally outstay her welcome and I'll barely get a word in.

And then other times, she'll randomly take me out to dinner as a gift or send flowers. I think because she's so chatty she strikes up a lot of friendships, but I'm noticing how the sharing of information and talking isn't exactly reciprocal.