My Sassy Life: To delete or not to delete

It all started when my cult sister* and I were having this epic girl talk. If you know anything about girl talk you know that women can solve world hunger, give parenting advice, fashion advice, share their favorite recipe, critique the most recent Disney movie, and discuss crazy Sally's recent Facebook status by the end of their first cup of coffee. Seriously, we are women, hear us roar!

By the time we were ready for our 2nd cup we began discussing a recent blog post of mine. We had a lot of deep thoughts going on, or maybe it was the coffee, regardless my sweet friend (we'll see about that) throws down the gauntlet and says, "I think you should write a post about reasons to delete people from Facebook!" We got a hearty laugh as we bantered back and forth but then she says, "No really, I'm serious! You should do it!" I felt like the kid in 'A Christmas Story' when he was double-dog, no make that triple-dog dared (GASP!!!) to stick his tongue on the pole.

When you think about it, Facebook is the virtual version of the elementary school playground, more specifically the sandbox that some haven't outgrown [sigh]. There's several types of people in the sandbox but for the purposes of this illustration we'll use a broad stroke. There are those who want to play and build sand castles and those that want to bury you; of course within each of those categories there's sub-categories, it's complicated, after all it's Facebook. Then there's people that just rather play on the swing and have their hair blown by unseen winds, that would be me.

On to the task at hand, what do you do with all those Facebook Friends (FF) that you've managed to treat as if they were a stamp collection. The answer is, "I don't know!" but that hasn't stopped me from having an opinion. Since I've been in "delete" mode for the better part of three months it looks like I am up for the challenge of offering up some not-so-expert advice on this topic. Here's to me sticking me out my tongue, drum roll please...

REASONS TO DELETE FF's (or not)

#1 - We have absolutely nothing in common
First question is then WHY are you FFs? Wait, let's not open that Pandora's Box. Sometimes we connect with former neighbors, former classmates and co-workers only to realize that we've outgrown each other; sadly all we really have is that one special memory (maybe two) with that person and deleting said person should be a no-brainer except of course the guilt-trip you put yourself through because said person hasn't "done" anything to merit you "deleting" them. Not to mention that on occasion you actually enjoy stalking them, GASP!! Thanks to the new features on the Facebook feed they don't even show up unless of course you stalk them frequently. The answer to this is dilemma is simple, just how special was that memory?

#2 - Argumentative people

In the immortal words of Uncle Si, "It's on like bing-bong Jack!" You know *that* person that has to argue with every status and/or every story you share. It's not so easy to ignore them either. Taking it "offline" doesn't work b/c that person wants to crush your ideology and they want witnesses. Foolishly you try to further "explain" the point which turns into an all out Facebook war only making you look like an idiot. Rather than educate you've managed to provide countless hours of entertainment to your Facebook following. To these people I say (unapologetically) DELETE!

#3 - You need a therapist and I'm not it
...and neither are the 1000+ friends whom have no training other than being parrots for your cause. Saying, "haters are gonna hate!" "don't worry you are so awesome" "that person just doesn't know how to appreciate you" is not, REPEAT is not sound advice! I tend to avoid "attention seeking FB statuses" unless I am in a particularly snarky mood that day. If you have a FF that is in constant need of affirmation, run now! WHY? because sooner (rather than later) you'll be their only FF left and when you pull the plug you will be shamed for it. Run while you can!

#4 - Political pundits
As the meme says, if only everyone would just read my Facebook statuses, the government would be fixed. Anyone that knows me know that I am passionate about politics. I also understand the undercurrent of how deeply personal and quickly heated these issues can become. Post your opinions but don't be antagonistic about it. If you have a FF that is antagonistic about their politics, whether or not you agree with them, you may want to distance yourself. One day they will disagree with you and it will be just as ugly, if not worse, as when you had observed them being disagreeable with others.

#5 - Family members

This is the group of people that are by far the most difficult ones to delete. These are the people that you would expect to bring a positive energy if you will, to your Facebook world, Unfortunately, you may have a family member whose only purpose is to stalk you so that they can learn about you, yet shares nothing of themselves. How about that family member that regularly posts vague statuses? < eye roll > by all means exercise your pointy finger and hit delete! Yes, I have in fact deleted family members, rest assured hell does not await, haha!

# 6 - The "My life is so awesome, aren't you jealous?" crowd

You know the ones that are constantly taking the "perfect picture" of their "perfect life" where their pictures consist of food, drinks, and selfies. After the first 10 pics of them standing in front of a bathroom mirror, I am nauseated with envy...NOT! I remember the days when bathrooms served a purpose and it was not a portrait studio! Stop it with the selfies already, you are not that cute and your bathroom is dirty!

#7 - The "super" mom
I'm SUPER! thanks for asking. This one is a cousin to the "selfie" addict except this person annoys you with all their perfect projects around the house and their obsession with Pinterest! ok, I'll admit it I too have an obsession with Pinterest but after my first epic fail, I use it as a bookmark tool vs a "to do" list. This has got to be the most unrealistic person in the Facebook world, NO ONE has it that put together, hello! even Martha Stewart went to jail! We can usually tolerate these types for a while, once again thanks to the Facebook features, we don't need to be reminded of their Pinterest wonders on a daily basis. Do you delete this "Precious Princess" well, that depends...

# 8 - The stalkers
You never hear from these folks but you run into them at the gas station or Target and they are all too familiar with your "so-called" life as told by you on Facebook. You walk away thinking, how do they know that? Then you get home and realize they are your FF or even worse if they are NOT your FF it means they are stalking you visa vie another person's page! Can we say creepy?!? It's time to delete them and/or their enabler.

#9 - The "Everything you can do I can do better, I can do anything better than you" crowd
No you can't, really. You know this type, it's the person that has to up the ante when you are in a conversation, the person that when you tell a story, they either did it or know someone that did the same thing and they did it better. Yeah, delete them, they will zap the sunshine out of a sunny day.

# 10 - Facebook isn't church (of any kind)
Full disclosure: I love Jesus! I am Christ follower, I have and will share Bible verses, inspirational quotes etc. I don't think there's anything wrong with that since it is my wall and naturally I will share things about my particular worldview. With that said, there are those that take their Facebook statuses and regularly turn them into sermons and by sermons I mean it takes me 20+minutes to read their status. I'm ADD I can't read all that! If this is what God is calling you to do may I suggest you start a Facebook page (or a blog) and market yourself according so all the work that you put into your statuses is not in vain. While you're at it stay away from Twitter (wink).

#11 - Misc
There's other innocuous reasons that I would choose to "delete" someone. For example, couples, if both the husband and wife are on Facebook and I happen to be friends with both and either one of them deleted me or I deleted one of them (due to any of the above reasons) It is likely that I would follow up and remove the spouse especially if the remaining spouse is a male. It seems weird to be to be FF with someone's husband. I've also run into FFs that said (at one time or another) that they were done with Facebook and deactivated, in an effort to keep my list clean, I deleted them (guilt-free) then they came back, ooops! There's others but that's all I have for now.

There you have it, the top reasons (in my opinion) to shrink your FF list. If you are looking to avoid being placed on someone's short-list or you want to be put on their short list, the above are a good place to start.