Once this most recent person was unfriended, I felt calmer, less seen, more myself (and fascinated that these were all equated). He wasn’t there, wherever there is. He was gone, not hidden. What further interested me was that he was as absent from my offline life as ever, but the palpable sense of getting him out of my online life felt substantial. And that speaks to the odd importance of our online selves, how they mirror or reinforce who we really are. In my informal survey many had obviously unfriended exes but others had purposefully kept them around so as not to give them the “satisfaction” of being unfriended, a funny twist. Are our experiences any less if everyone can’t see it? Some part of our experiences include us wanting specific other people to know about them. There’s some secret part of ourselves that must admit we want that. But the unfriend is saying I don’t and therefore has some actual meaning and significant social power.

Facebook has made us forget that we don’t want to know everyone. We’ve forgotten it can be nice to be alone, as it can be helpful to be quiet. I’ve made a ritual of not going on my phone first thing in the morning, or taking it out when my dinner companions excuse themselves and this helps me have one or two quiet moments inside my own head. Along the same lines I’ve also decided that the unfriend is allowed. The art of the unfriend can range from the occasional housecleaning of people you really don't know or will never see again, to the psychological protection of ridding yourself of someone bad for you, to no longer aligning yourself with someone you don't want to be aligned with. Don't avoid the unfriend for fear of seeming melodramatic or one day changing your mind. Delete your ex-boyfriend if he makes you so mad you forget you’re a grown woman. Delete the friend you wouldn't want to meet for a drink in real life. Grow apart like you should.

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