Unfriended

I don't use Facebook for professional contacts. In fact, I don't friend people from the university where I teach or professors at the university where I'm doing my diss, even though I have very good friends among those groups. I have some grad school friends friended, which has meant that there is a fuzzy overlap if one of them adjuncts for us, but basically it's a personal network for me, and I mostly friend people that I don't see regularly--childhood friends and friends who live in different states and extended family--people that I want to keep up with but don't call or email regularly. I also have a couple of bloggers on there (hi!), which is funny when I tell Husband about one of their updates ("Who are you talking about?"). I don't really keep track of my friends list, so I don't notice immediately if someone drops me. I have fewer than 75 friends, so it is noticeable after awhile. I only noticed this week that my sister closed her account, and I have no idea when she did that (probably months ago).

But a month or two ago I did notice that two friends from middle school dropped me at the same time. I was really happy to find them on FB. One was my best friend for years; I loved her. Then in middle school, when some new girls moved in, we became a group of 5. I'm not sure what happened, but in 7th grade, 2 of them (the 2 who dropped me on FB) stopped talking to me and never told me why. I'm guessing it was because the bf's boyfriend liked me, I had a major crush on him, and they broke up. But I wouldn't "go" with him because you don't do that to friends, right? But I honestly have no idea; this is the only thing I can think of, even now. The other 2 and I stayed close until I moved, and all 4 stayed friendly with each other. The problem was clearly between me and the first two and the other 2 didn't get involved, but managed to maintain friendships with all of us--quite a feat for middle-school girls. Then when I moved back, but was only occasionally in school because of chronic illness (this would be the 3-year migraine), they let me sit at lunch with them, but we never spoke outside of lunch. I was miserable because of the migraines and all that came with that, so I didn't do much reaching out.

I noticed that they dropped me at the same time, but they're still there because I see them comment on mutual FB friends' posts. And even though I am a happy adult, all of those old feelings of rejection just washed over me. I felt 13 again. Part of it also sucks because most people have hundreds of friends (them included; I know because I used their friends lists to track down other childhood friends) so it feels like an actual rejection rather than some random purge (which is probably was). This is the problem with social networking with people from your past--there is baggage, and it colors your completely superficial online relationship.

There should be a lesson in here somewhere about not leaving things unfinished or how long hurt feelings can last, or a point about letting things go or something. But there isn't; at least I don't have one. I've just been thinking about this today.