In real life, we call it ‘being dumped’ or ‘breaking up’. In social media, its ‘defriending’. It is the act of leaving your friends, bf or gf, severing ties, calling it quits. Recently, I’ve been going through my social media lists, and making tough decisions on who to sever, and who to keep. In doing so, something came to mind.

What happens when you defriend someone in your social media world, and then you come face to face with them in real life?

What if you run in to them at the store? Coffee house? Out on the town?

One of my former school friends defriended me recently. I’m ok with that. I mean I don’t want to force myself on anyone. Argh – who am I kidding? It stings when you get dumped. Even if its online!

I’ve really thought through this… and even envisioned showing up at our next school reunion and running in to said ‘dumper’.  Would the conversation go something like this: “Hi Kerri*. Oh…what have I been up to? Well, if you hadn’t dumped me on Facebook, then you’d probably know.”

But wait! Before you go defriending everyone, think about the future, and how you will feel if you run in to them in real life. If you’re unsure , then there is an another option.

Its simple – just hide their updates from showing up in your newsfeed. Oila! Now we won’t bother you with our frequent posts, but you will save face at the next reunion!! 🙂 Check out this post for more info on how to ‘hide’ people in your newsfeed.

Now – back to defriending!