When Facebook Friends Attack

I'll be the first to admit that I have too many Facebook friends. In my defense, I have met 99.9% of them in person at least once. That isn't the issue of this post, though. The issue is that I can't get myself to unfriend people.

I graduated from college almost two years ago (dammit, I'm getting old!), and I'm still friends with people from my freshman dorm, some of whom I haven't talked to since we lived near each other five years ago. I'm also friends with the friends of my siblings, a couple kids I used to babysit, and friends of friends. My standard policy is that if I've met you, I'll accept your friend request. And, like the glitter around Ke$ha's eyes, once you're there (in my list of facebook friends), it's difficult for me to take you off (... of my list of facebook friends). Here is a visual description:

Well... it's difficult, with the exception of the following list!

TJL's List of

No-Brainer Unfriending Situations

1. Ignorance.

I once had a friend who posted a status about a segment Oprah did on "Brothers on the down-low", basically accusing any and every man in the closet of getting infected with every STI imaginable and then "infecting his women."

I considered trying to correct him, but he's sort of cray cray on a Kanye level, so I decided the "unfriend" option was better.

2. Incessant Pessimism

I get it... we all have bad days. For whatever reason, some people like to harp on this more than others... to the point where every status is about how terrible the world is to them. If you look at your own profile page and it starts reading off like the lyrics to a really bad emo song, you're doing something wrong. You might also be that blob from the Zoloft commercials.

3. Facebook =/= Twitter

As soon as I got a Twitter account, I found that my status updates on Facebook dwindled. If I have something clever to say or announce that people might want to comment on, I'll post it to facebook. If I'm just being witty in general (read: always), or watching a sporting event and commenting in real time, then Twitter's the way to go. Still, there are way too many people who insist (insist!) on providing blow-by-blows of their days, or announcing that it's time for them to go to bed. These are usually the same people who think Twitter is stupid. I give them the side eye:

4. Bad Taste

I once had a friend who posted links to at least three songs each day, depending on his mood. I was fine with this at first, but after the third Miley Cyrus video was posted to express his inner angst at finding love, I made like Bon Qui Qui and decided "this dude needs ta go. Needs ta go."

As with any other list I make, there are always exceptions. For example, I could never find it in my heart to unfriend a family member, no matter how far removed from them I am.

... And that, my friends, is what the "Hide" button is for.