I've never done a Facebook purge, nor have I ever felt the inclination to do so. I'm not sure why it is a somewhat common thing for others, but not for me; it may be that I have been a little pickier in who I have friended (the only friends I have that I've never met in person are radio DJs I like, and there are many people Facebook thinks I should be friends with that I am not because I did not get along with them in real life); it may be that my friends list has never grown long enough to warrant such a purge (my friends list has been hovering between 130 and 140 pretty much since I left NAIT three years ago); or it could be that the rare time a friend is posting things I don't like I am completely satisfied with just blocking their content from my feed (in the six years I have been on Facebook I have unfriended one person).
No, I don't have people I wish to unload to my virtual life, but what I do have is a long list of people I wish I could add to it, such as:
1. My High School Gaming Friends
From the moment I first signed up for Facebook there has been no group I wanted to friend more than this, and no group that I have struggled more to find. I did find Alan not long after I joined and Quinn found me fairly recently, but other than those two (and two others who only very occasionally gamed, and a third who I was good friends with in high school but did not get along so well in university) I have really struggled to find any one.
All in all that is probably 75% of my friends I had as a child who either have no presence of Facebook or are so well hidden that I have never been able to find them. Compared to the percentage of the general population my age that have Facebook accounts, it an anomaly.
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| At least I'll always have you . . . |
2. Family
My father died when I three, and the next year my mother decided that his family should have nothing to do with me. Four years later my mother had a fight with her mother, and I would never see anyone from my mother's family for the rest of my childhood.
Growing up the only child of a single mother with no extended family in my life the value I place on family has always been significantly lower than most other people do. That being said, I had long hoped that Facebook could marginally increase the presence that family has in my life - for the most part it hasn't.
I am Facebook friends with a few of the Dyers (relatives of my mom's third husband) and a few of my in-laws, but that's about it.
Despite many attempts, I have yet to track down a single cousin, aunt or uncle of mine (from either side of my family) on Facebook. Admittedly, I only have a small number of names to go off of, but I've always assumed that as soon as I find one, others would follow.
With the Dyers I have had good luck with those close to my age, but not so good luck with those much older or younger than me; mostly this is an issue of not being on Facebook, though some have chosen to reject friend requests from me.
When I first got on Facebook I made a conscious choice to not friend any in-laws I didn't already know well until I could track down some of my own family. Months have turned into years, and at this point it would just seem odd sending friend requests to my wife's nieces and nephews that probably don't even remember me; though I probably should get on friending my brother and sister in-laws that joined Facebook in the last couple years.
3. LRPS
I was part of the Live Role Playing Society for three years in the mid-90s. With one exception (which I will mention in a minute), the issue I have had with LRPS friends is very different than with my family and gaming friends. First of all, I have lots of friends on Facebook that I knew through LRPS - after call centre co-workers and former classmates they are the biggest group represented in my friends list. Second of all, I have never really gone looking on Facebook for people I knew through LRPS - everyone of them on my friend list is there because Facebook suggested I friend them and I thought "yeah, that's a good idea".
And yet, I hold an angst towards my lack of LRPS friends. This can be simply explained as, almost every denied friend request I have ever had was from a LRPS member. Why have so many LRPS members turned me down? I don't know for sure. My best guess is just that I remember them better than they remember me. I was a quiet guy who was only part of that group for a fraction of its existence, so in all likelihood many of the long term members don't have a clue who I am when I send them a request.
Now as for that exception. Todd was my roommate while I was in university, and when I signed up for Facebook I had really hoped I could use it to get back in touch with him. Still, it doesn't shock me he's not on it (last I checked), he was never much of a computers guy, and probably still isn't.
4. Co-Workers and Classmates
I group these two together because the situation is much the same. I have been pretty efficient at friending both of these groups during my time on Facebook; each of them represent a sizable fraction of my friends. Yet, in each group there have been a lot of people that I wish I had on my friends list that I do not. But, what makes the missing friends from these groups so different is that as time passes I care less that they aren't there.
When I joined Facebook it had been just 4 years since I had left Convergys and just 1 since I had left Dell; I've now been on Facebook for 6 years. When I was friending my NAIT classmates I was in class with them; next month it will be 3 years since I've seen most of them.
I don't even remember the names of most of the co-workers and classmates I used to wish I could track down, much less why I enjoyed their company.
Of course, because I have so many co-workers on my friends list, and because those call centres were so huge, Facebook loves suggesting employees from Convergys and Dell for me to add. But the ones it seems to suggest aren't even the ones I used to want to add, they are all either strangers or people I didn't like when I worked with them.
5. Outliers
There are a few people who aren't really part of some easy to point to group that I wish I could find and friend - a couple of kids I knew when I was really young, a couple more I knew when I was somewhat older, a guy I played board games with many years ago, a girl who helped me out when I had nowhere to stay and so on.
From time to time I look for some of them, but always fail to find them.
In many ways being unable to find people you want to find is the most frustrating thing that can happen to you with Facebook, after all, connecting with others is the very purpose of social media.
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