I am thinking back to being 7 and what it was like to lose a friend. When I was seven, computers were non-existent, so losing a friend happened the old-fashioned way: they simply stopped inviting me to be in their orbit. Sometimes it happened almost imperceptibly where the interactions and invitations came less and less and the friendship would fade into the past; sometimes it came with a little shock and awe: “I am not inviting you to my Birthday Party.” It stung. It really stung when the loss happened like that, often peppered with other unkindnesses: broken confidence, gossip, rumors.
As the years passed, this was the general formula with some variations of how one lost a friend. And I shouldn’t say that it just happened to me; I also broke friendships.
Now the loss of friendship has another twist: unfriending. This is the computer variety where someone’s “friend list” on Facebook, for example, lengthens and shortens as one adds and subtracts people.
First of all, one must argue for or against the validity of the “friend list”. Sometimes people on my list are acquaintances from the long ago past and I’m just curious to know what they have done for the last 20 years; or there are people I met one time at a party and struck up a conversation, enough to find out they are on Facebook; or the friend of a friend of a friend who sells some sort of gadgetry I was interested in so I added them. So not “friends” in the truest sense.
Still, there is the list of my network and so I want to know, is it ever right to unfriend someone? The answer is yes, of course; some people are abusive or inappropriate in their posts. Why should I subject myself or my friends to that? But then the question, do you just unfriend and allow that person to stumble across their banishment? Or should there still be a process that involves a conversation?
Maybe I am making too big a deal out of this; but I don’t think so. I think that when I find myself in a conflict with someone and if that conflict is not easily resolved, there is a good chance I will find myself off their friendship list. It is an easy knife to thrust.
I have been unfriended several times. I mean I have lost friends by the traditional means too (terribly painful), but in the last few years I have found myself “on the out” on Facebook and didn’t know I had been removed. It causes me to pause and ask myself, what made this person feel OK about doing that? And, if we hold up Christ’s standard as important, is that OK for a follower of His to do that? Are these people who I am in some way connected to via Facebook…my neighbor?
I wrestled with this with someone who was on my Friend List. He wasn’t a close friend, he was someone I met from another group on a missions trip I was on. He posted on my wall here and there and then he started arguing with friends of mine that he didn’t even know. I spoke to it and there was no change. I didn’t know what would be appropriate in this situation. I couldn’t just “unfriend” him, I felt. He would notice eventually and that felt pretty rude. So I emailed him and said that I was open to staying in contact with him, that I wasn’t trying to hurt him, but I needed to remove him from my Facebook because his interactions were confusing to people who didn’t know him.
Like it or not, unfriending (if you were a friend) is a statement. It tells the person on the other end that you consciously took the time to remove them. You do not want to see their face. You do not want to hear their voice. You are not interested in them and you do not want them to have a window into your life. If there has been a problem between you, then this is a definite step away from. A deliberate step away.
As Christ-followers, are we allowed to do that? I mean go to the extreme end of the argument where someone is your actual ENEMY (not just someone you dislike or are annoyed or offended by) and Jesus says we absolutely, without question, must LOVE them.
Think about that for a second. People who have crossed you, someone you once claimed to cherish, are you willing to actually say, “You are now my ENEMY?” Jesus says, even if they are that — your actual adversary, enemy — you must still engage with that person as modeled by Jesus Himself in Scripture. So anything in between applies as well.
Scripture keeps pulling us towards, towards, towards people: back to the table. So the unfriend button on Facebook, for a Christ-follower, should be a sobering thing to stare at.
When is it OK to unfriend? When they have offended you? When you have had to forgive them 7 times for offending you? Seventy times seven times?
The Urban Dictionary actually had a great definition (among the many not-so-great definitions) for unfriending: “a coward’s way of conflict management in the world of social networking; to disassociate from someone or something without attempt to resolve conflict or give notice.”
— Teresa Klassen
OneBrownLeaf 