Have you ever reached a point in life where you want to just cut out human deadweight?

I’m a Facebook person. I have been since 2007. Although I do have Twitter and Instagram accounts, I don’t use them nearly as much. I always liked the more personal connection I had with friends vs. “followers.”

For a long time I kept everyone in my friends list who I knew and who hadn’t gravely offended me, whether we talked or not. Seemed fun at the time finding old friends and such, but my old friends had stuck together and moved on without me when I moved away. Fair, but I felt excluded a lot when I came back. Sometimes I felt like I was begging people to get together with me, and getting hems and haws… last minute canceling, so on so forth. People who were nearby and easily accessible, yet. People who clearly didn’t want to be friends, by their actions alone.

For a while I let it hurt my self esteem. Then something clicked and I just stopped trying. Waited to hear from anyone to know whether I was a priority. I didn’t, and so I assumed I wasn’t.

I reached a point where I didn’t care to have anything to do with people who added no value to my life. Mainly because we never interacted (mostly no hard feelings there) and because I just didn’t feel like having lurkers who could know my life without having to be in it. I started off with a couple of people. Delete, delete. Waited to feel like I made a mistake. I felt more free, though. So a few more. Then eventually I started clearing my list with a machete, so to speak, periodically going through and removing people.

After a lot of toxic, frustrating years with my in-laws, I called it quits with them too – entirely. I just felt done, and a year and a half later, I still feel good about that decision. They added mostly stress to my life, not much of value.

Snip, snip.

It seems to run counter to today’s culture of more, more, more people. More followers. More friends. More connections.

Some people seem to feel that if they’re removed from social media, that means the friendship is over. These people have my other contact info, yet don’t make use of it – again, proving my reasoning. We lack all normal human interaction these days, having hundreds of “friends” who we never make the effort to talk to.

I remove people who are rude in my posts. People who never even click a reaction, let alone comment. People who I know have core values so wildly different from mine that I feel the basis of a friendship is no longer there.

Sometimes I think I’m being ridiculous. Cutting so many people, sometimes without explanation. Maybe I’m the problem, maybe I don’t know how to be social in this day and age, maybe I should just try harder for niceties sake.

Then I think back to being a kid, and how my mothers friends, my friends, everyone’s friends – they were people we interacted with all the time – that those were the people who knew our daily life, nobody else. Phone calls. Visits. That’s how it was.

Don’t get me wrong, I love text and I don’t love calls, though Covid made that a necessity and I had to adjust. But just the actual human connection, not a profile. Not excess baggage.

Just something I happened to be thinking about. Wondering how bizarre I am, or yes anyone else tired of this seemingly exhibitionist culture? Everything being a show, or else personal lives being aired to everyone you met since birth?

When I was young, I kept a small circle of friends. Then social media came, with its constant need for validation, and I did that for a lot of years. Burned out on the show and the fake. Now I’m working toward a small circle again, knowing myself all enough to know that’s what I really need.

You?

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Full disclosure – I love followers of my blog. The more the merrier. But in this case I’m showing what I want to, I have anonymity (which I prefer in order to keep privacy for the people connected to me), and I’m fine with anyone seeing it. Please. Love me. Follow me. I’ll love you back. I’LL LOVE YOU BACK!