That sounds more extreme than it is. But I occasionally will go through my FB friends list and unfriend people.
I’m sure that seems harsh to those who notice it, but I’m also pretty sure that the people I’ve unfriended on there aren’t going to notice. And that’s because there’s a certain type of person who uses Facebook not as a place to form genuine connection with others but more like a social rolodex.
Now, maybe it’s my age. I grew up pre-Facebook. Hell, I didn’t have email access until college. And even then it was within your school unless you found the IP address and looked through the student directory of your friends’ schools.
But I digress.
So this weekend I was at a writing conference. I’d been there the year before. And as part of being there the year before I’d added some new Facebook friends. I’m always happy to do that for someone I’ve had a nice conversation with. Because I figure that’s a way to keep in touch with them and maybe take a good initial connection and broaden it into a friendship.
And throughout the last year I’d seen the posts these folks made. I knew about their ski trips and their new pets and their story publications. I had learned a little more about them. I’d liked a post here or replied to a post there.
But I realized this weekend that that wasn’t a two-way street. That for the folks I just unfriended I was just part of their audience, not someone they were trying to form a genuine connection with. While I knew more about them, they barely remembered we’d met before.
Partially that’s Facebook’s fault. If you have 600 “friends” you’re not going to see all their posts. Facebook curates what it shows.
But it’s also on those people for forming one-way connections. You want to have 600 FB friends? Fine. But if you want those 600 people to genuinely feel like friends and not just voyeurs of your life, then make a point to visit the personal page of everyone in your friends list on a regular basis. Once a month see what they’ve posted and add a like or make a comment. Do something that shows it’s not all about you.
Now, I know that some are reading this and thinking, huh? Do people really care about these things? And I will admit that many don’t. That’s why when blogs were big you could have hundreds or thousands of blog followers and only ten people who actually read your posts. Because people followed your blog just so you’d follow theirs.
But for the type of person I am (Relator being one of my top five strengths on the Strengthsfinder test), this sort of thing actually matters. And I will shut down a one-way “friendship”. Because it’s not a friendship. It’s not a genuine connection. And those are what actually matter to me.
So, anyway. Just throwing it out there.
M.L. Humphrey 
My youth was pre-Internet-ubiquity, too. First email address I had was from my University, and I had to fill in a long form justifying my need for it rather than just getting one as standard the way students seem to do these days.
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