4 Reasons to Get "Unfriend"

The word "Unfriend" was chosen as the New Oxford American Dictionary's 2009 Word of the Year. To "unfriend" someone is to remove that person from your friends list in Facebook, Friendster, MySpace or any social networking site.

We all have unfriend someone and we ourselves could have been unfriend by others. If you belong to the latter, have you wondered why you got yourself unfriend? Here are 4 main reasons, told from my personal experiences:

1) You pissed someone off.
There are so many reasons to this - you guys had a fall-out, you said or did something that offended the other person, and the list goes on.

One of my colleague got unfriend cause he made some comments on one of his friend's photo on Facebook.

The moral of the story here is to think before you make any comments online because something you find amusing could be offensive to another.

2) You are no longer important to that person.
Steven added me because we had friends in common. We chatted online a couple of times on Facebook. When I realised he wanted to become more than friends, and I was not interested, he unfriend me.

I've encountered few other guys who were looking for the same thing as Steven. But when I turned them down, we remained on each others friend list cause even if I'm not interested in that kind of way, we can still remain friends, right? But Steven was different; I guess his ego must have taken a beating when I turned him down. Well, what can I say ...

3) You didn't bother to keep in touch.
I was introduced to Ken through a mutual friend while at Hard Rock Cafe in KL. It was me and my big mouth who suggested that we add each other on Facebook.

Ken told me he only wants to have 30 friends in his friends list, and that he will delete anyone who doesn't keep in touch.

A criteria he sets for anyone who wants to remain in his friends list is that they must send him a message every week at a minimum. And get this: he don't have to send any message to his friends, it is they who must send him one in order to remain on his friends list.

I thought he was joking when he told me all this. After all, which idiot would have such unfair, selfish and stupid criterias to keep friends. But I found out soon enough that he was not joking. And he proved himself to be an unfair, selfish and stupid idiot.

4) You got unfriend for no reason what-so-ever.
I saved the best stories for last. Here are 2 stories how I got unfriend for no reason what-so-ever:

Story 1
Galen is a nice fella with lots of ambition and a heart for charity. I remember he was training to climb K2 for charity. We corresponded occasionally via Facebook. But one day I discovered he had unfriend me.

I tracked back all our correspondence to see if I had offended him in any way, but nothing. I'm still wondering why he did what he did.

Story 2
Like Galen, Spencer and I would send an occasional message to see how each other is doing. We would also send flowers occassionally using the Growing Gifts application.

One fine day, Spencer sends me a message saying he is in China indefinitely. When I asked him what was he doing there, he didn't reply. Since he was in this part of the world, I invited him to drop by Malaysia on his way back to England, but he didn't say anything.

When I browsed his photos, it looked like Spencer went to China to meet a girl.

I also saw a comment on his wall from a lady saying she's unhappy that he had unfriend her for no reason. Not long after reading that comment, I discovered Spencer had unfriend me too.

I think his Chinese girlfriend must have been insecured seeing that her Mat Salleh (Caucasian) boyfriend has a hot looking Chinese chick in his friend's list and she must have squeezed him by the balls to unfriend me, muahahaha ...

In Conclusion ...
I was rather disappointed when I found out I got unfriend. If I had pissed any of them off then they have every right to unfriend me. But I'm not guilty of that.

Then I asked myself why should I get disappointed? Is my life gonna get any more meaningful knowing that I'm on the friends list of these people? The answer is 'no' cause I didn't have a "real" relationship with these people in the first place.

It just goes to show that people you meet online are merely faces. Some of them may move on to become acquaintances and some into close friends.

But unless and until we have a real connection with our friends, or we work at nurturing our online relationships, we are all gonna continue unfriend-ing each other. So let nature take its cause and don't fret if you get unfriend.