IT’S HURTS TO BE BLOCKED BY A FRIEND ON FACEBOOK

Social media has a way of making you feel bad about yourself.

You get blocked by someone on Facebook, or vice versa, and you think you are an awful human being. It’s as if you have committed a sin. At least that’s how I feel.

Some people even regularly post on their Facebook status update: “If you are reading this, you were not deleted from my friends’ list.”

I learned the phrase “if it’s not on Facebook, it’s not true” years ago while I was still a journalism student. I remember how bad I felt when I learned this statement and my then-boyfriend never even sent me a “in a relationship” request.

“If it’s not on Facebook, it’s not true,” rang in my mind. Is he not ready to go public with our relationship, I asked myself. I later confronted him about it.

MY LIKES ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

Nowadays, I want to be a little bit private. So I don’t update what location I am hanging out, or don’t post much photos of myself and whoever I hang out with. The Facebook administrators probably picked up that a lot of people have gone a bit private, that’s why they send you “today – a year ago, two years ago, et cetera” updates.

It’s really nice to see where my mind was a year or more ago. I love these updates. Sometimes I write a status update, just so that I will have a reminder of it in a few years’ time.

FRIENDS FOR A SEASON VS FRIENDS FOREVER

Back to why social media makes you feel bad:

A friend and I recently discussed how bad we felt when certain people blocked us out of their lives. “Blocked us out of their lives” meaning they unfriended us on Facebook and/ or wherever else. This is because they have some beef with us.

I have learned over the past few years that some friends are only there for a season. They are there, because you or they might need each other for a certain time.

Other friends are there for life – you fight, you make up, you learn from it, you get distanced from each other, but then when you hook up, it’s like you or this friend(s) never left.

We tend to feel bad about people blocking us out of their lives, because we worry about what others will think about it.

You used to post photos of you and this person, or tag each other in status updates. People you had friends in common with, saw this. So obviously they will notice that you and this person(s) broke up with each other.

Who deleted who, these people would think [all the things I told myself].

I realised that most people don’t really care about what you think.

Yes, some will look for juicy things in your life, because they don’t have anything better to do for a few minutes. Those who do it for more than a few minutes are called “trolls” or haters.

IT’S OKAY TO FEEL LIKE THIS

Who cares what people think? Who cares if you post a status update that says “I am cutting certain people out of my life”?

I learned that sometimes it is for the best that someone deletes you (unfriends you). It would be better for that person’s sanity not to read your status updates, because it just hurts that person to see it.

Also, as a former journalism classmate would say: “It’s your [democratic] right to change your mind.”

So, if you feel bad when someone unfriends you, remember it’s okay to feel so. But let it go.

It’s for the best that this person no longer wants to be your friend. You have a lot to offer – that person is just not seeing it now.

Have you ever been deleted by a friend, or are you the one to delete? Tell me why.