The Big Delete

So shortly after I posted my technology rant I realized that I had 352 Facebook friends. THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY-TWO!!!! So I decided to clean out my closet…of friends that is…we aren’t touching the clothes closet or what it needs….

*Disclaimer* - I am not pregnant. Nor do I intend to be in the foreseeable future. However, I do want to be someday. When that day comes, I don’t want 352 people seeing the pictures I’d like to share with my friends and family of me looking all nasty and sweaty and sick and miserable and tired and worn out and all the other things new Mom’s look like. But what’s more is that I don’t want them seeing pictures of my incredibly adorable, amazing, beautiful, genius, super-cute, exceptionally swell child. I mean, unless I have an ugly child, which could happen. So maybe I don’t want strangers seeing my ugly, troll-like, carrot topped or possibly bald baby. In either case, I don’t want 352 people I don’t truly know seeing pictures of the baby. Ugly or adorable.

So I set out on this adventure and I hit “unfriend” on the page of every person whom I could not remember either leaving me a comment, liking a photo, posting a picture, etc on my page in the last 6 months. That didn’t bring the number down low enough for me so I set out with new parameters. If I hadn’t left a comment on THEIR page in the past year, I “unfriended” them, too. You know I had friends that I have NEVER communicated with via Facebook other than to hit the accept button on their friend request? The shame!

My friend count is officially down to 221. I still think this is a pretty large number and I was sincerely hoping to get it down to fewer than 200. However, I counted and close to 75 of my Facebook friends are family….so, that means that my friends from other walks of life is down to under 150 and I feel good about that number. I mean, it’s not my fault I come from fertile genes so I don’t think they should count towards my technology life because I will also send them pictures of that cute or possibly ugly child in the mail.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I deleted distant relatives. I mean if they were a second or third cousin, or even a few first cousins honestly, and they had never left me a comment, they were out! You know what the crazy thing is? They won’t miss me. I bet at least 90% of them don’t even notice I am gone. In fact, I deleted 131 friends and I could probably only actually name a handful of them. They won’t miss me, and I will not likely miss them. If they miss me, they’ll friend me again and I guess that means they are keepers. Or maybe stalkers. Or maybe just curious. Either way, I’ll accept the friend request. Although, I truly think that the ones that are gone will never notice.

So ultimately, I feel good about this decision. This cleansing of my virtual world if you will. I also have started putting my phone in a separate room while we eat dinner, leaving it in the car when we go to movies or stores…you know, taking my own advice and “disconnecting” from the technology. I mean I got what I was achieving, which is that at the end of the day, less than 150 friends will be seeing my adorable child. Or my freak baby. Someday.