Taking the Social Life Too Seriously

I had a moment I’m not proud of last night. No, I’m not about to confess something awful, but I’m not happy about a reaction I had because of social media. I discovered, by accident, that a family member has unfriended me. And I cried a little. Not torrents, just a few tears, but it upset me. I mean, technically, I guess this person is a former family member, being the relative of my ex-husband. (I am recently divorced.) But I’m still in the stage of thinking of them as family and certainly, still, as a friend.

As soon as I had that minor meltdown, I staged an intervention with myself. SERIOUSLY, I said to myself, you care about what your connection is to another human being on FACEBOOK?

Naturally, I was right. Whether I’m connected to someone on a social platform or not does NOT define how I feel about them. It doesn’t color or shape how often I think of them, or whether I think of them with fondness or indifference. If someone feels the need to sever our ties on a social network, I think that is less about me, than it is about them. Whatever they need to do to manage their social life is fine with me.

What do you think? Does it matter to you when someone in your life unfriends you? How seriously should we take these online relationships?