Facebook’s for fun right? it’s there for me to have fun on, to discuss what’s on my mind with my friends and family, comment amusingly on other peoples cat pictures & share funny pictures of my 2 yr old little girl wearing hats. I had one of my Uncles on there, lets call him Derek, one who I was close to as kid, now not so much. There’s been several incidents in the past (before the advent of FB) where’s he been heavily critical of me, one time in particular he phoned me up drunk and was very nasty, brought me to tears when I was in a bad place in my life. Whenever he’d comment on my stuff on FB he would be critical or be vaguely nasty under the guise of humour. One time I posted a joke about Thatcher just after she died and he laid into me telling me I shouldn’t speak ill of the dead etc etc so I deleted him and his wife from my fb. I’m 38, I’m well aware of the implications or how I might appear behind everything I post and I still choose to post it. If I disagreed with something someone had said I wouldn’t go telling them that they shouldn’t have done/said that, I’d just ignore it or hide the story. Everyone leads their life in their own way who am I to judge them. Also I wanted him off my fb because when I’d go to post I think ‘I wonder what uncle derek would think about this’ That’s not how it should be – I want to be free to post what I want without fear of getting judged by some arrogant self-important Uncle and tbh I feel much better since deleting him. I have deleted others off of FB for being depressive or negative, life’s too short to associate with negative people. I’d rather fill my life with people who will inspire me, make me laugh or at the very least have a positive attitude towards life. Not people who go around telling people how to live their lives, I’d delete a peer for this so why should I make allowances just because this person is my mums brother? I shouldn’t.

Unfortuanately deleting him and his wife off FB means that they don’t get updates about my family life and my beautiful little girl, which they probably enjoyed, but tough shit he shouldn’t have been such an A rsehole. Now he feels aggrieved over it because my mum (his sister) has asked me why I did it and now also my Sister, so he’s obvisouly been talking to them about it. My reasons are completely justified so why do I feel like I’m the one who’s done wrong?

To be brutally honest, you come across like a teenager in the above.

Family, the friends in life you don’t get to choose.

…and breathe…

He’s absolutely right because, before Facebook, families never spoke to each other.

If he’s that concerned about getting updates about your little girl, he should pick up the phone, invite you to dinner, all that stuff. Otherwise, meh, he’s bothered enough to whine to your mum about it but not bothered enough to actually do something about it.

So on reflection, nuts to him. A lesson I learned far too late in life is that life’s too short to be filling it with arseholes.

I deleted one guy I vaguely knew from martial arts – next time we were both at training, he asked me why in front of a bunch of people. “Because you kept posting racist EDL stuff”. Awkward for him.

Tell people why you deleted him. Set up a Flickr account to share images with family who aren’t (or ant be trusted on) FB. Works for me.

Unfortuanately deleting him and his wife off FB

Neither me, my girlfriend, nor anyone else in our family update facebook with life stuff. It was possible before Facebook to keep people in touch, it’s still possible now.

As Crikey states, you do sound like a bit of a teenager. However, some folk just know how to wind people up. Regardless of how old they/you are. He sounds like a bit of a dick.

I’d probably do the same thing, and leave it at that. It might not be the right thing if you’re getting all pious, but balls to that. I’d rather not get wound up by someone being a nobber. He could always stop being a critical Bawbag.

There are privacy settings which you could explore in order to limit someone’s access to your posts without deleting him or her as a friend. 💡

So on reflection, nuts to him. A lesson I learned far too late in life is that life’s too short to be filling it with arseholes.

Plus one. The impending oblivion is bad enough. Without spending the time impending bickering about bullcrap.

Might sound daft but have you actually tried telling him how he makes you feel and actually talking to him. IMHO deleting him as a friend is the quick and easy option which in turn could lead to a more difficult situation. A chat may have been more difficult at first but may lead to resolution.

Also and I’m sorry to say this everyone is different and not everyone is in the same place at the same time to make a comment along the lines of “I’m not being friends with miserable people” is incredibly childish. When you were in a ‘bad place’ and probably a little down would you have liked it if your friends defriended you because they didnt like having miserable friends?

As per DD you can also elect not to see any posts from an individual even though they’re still a “friend”.

No way in hell are colleagues or reasonably close family being “friends” on my FB. And I’m not going to be making use of FB’s feature (if any) that lets you say who’s family, and limit posts to a subset of “friends”.
Different a/c maybe. Sod FB’s policy on that.

There are other ways of informing the world of updates to friends and family.

edit: I blocked a load of friends during US and UK elections. Can’t believe how much radical BS gets propagated because of FB etc.

Being family doesn’t excuse him for the above mentioned twattery, don’t feel you have to put up with him just so he can see your wee girl. Also; personal stuff on FB? privacy setting for that.

I deleted everyone & now only have groups, no one said a word! 🙂

Unfollowed people on Twitter & got all sorts of hassle, some weird folks out there

Unfollowed people on Twitter

🙁

🙂

When you were in a ‘bad place’ and probably a little down would you have liked it if your friends defriended you because they didnt like having miserable friends?

Slightly OT

As it goes this very thing happened to me. Net result was that I ended up with a small group of genuine friends who would actually help me. And I lost contact with people who where only interested with me if I was being a laugh.

Ultimately one of the defining moments of my life when it comes to interactions with other. Knowing that quality of relationships is all that really matters has made me a far happier and contented person.

I’m just not prepared to force an unwanted friendship to continue for no other reason than moral obligation. It needs to be a genuine ‘want’ of friendship. And it needs to be reciprocal. A forced friendship is of little help to those that need support, at least that was the case for me. I was well aware of who was forcing friendship with me, and it did sod all to help.

I’d have definitely started out by asking him why he’s such a prick.. And I find Facebook as valuable a tool as any other for communicating, as long as it remains a tool and not a lifestyle choice