Dear Mr. Zuckerberg,

I am writing you today to ask you why you used the term “friend” as your way of connecting people together on Facebook. Not everyone who you are connected with on Facebook is a “friend”. They are someone that you meet through someone, work related, family member, someone you knew 20 years ago, and they found you again on facebook.

Some of these people turn out to be friends. But what about the people that you haven’t seen in 20 years and then you re-connect. You agree to meet and go for dinner, drinks or coffee. Then it goes a few different ways – you decide, “hey I think that person is someone I want to be friends with again after 20 years, let’s see where this takes us” or perhaps, “yeah, well, there was a reason why maybe we didn’t stay connected after high school and the past should be left in the past”.

I had a situation last year when I was “unfriended” and I have to be honest with you – it was a horrible feeling and an experience I would never want to repeat. At first I thought it was a mistake, and then I tried it myself and you have to do a two step process to remove someone as a friend, up to that point I had never “unfriended” anyone. It asks you, “are you sure you want to unfriend this person, because this action cannot be undone”. Once you click yes, you are done…that person is no longer your friend and you don’t exist.

This happened again to me this summer with someone I thought was a good friend. This person said that “facebook” did it and when she tried to click on a picture it said, “add as friend”…..well…we cleared that up, and then last night, the same person, I noticed when I tried to find the profile and was not able, came up “add as friend.” Another ‘mutual’ connection I found out last night removed me as a friend as well.

Facebook has coined many new terms in our vocabulary, like “in box me” or “friend me” or “post on my wall”…. and you all know that I really enjoy using facebook to share thoughts, ideas, tv show tips, food tricks, and all of that. I am not saying I don’t like facebook or don’t want to use it anymore (the HORROR LOL)

As I said in my post over the weekend, if you are sick of all my posts, updates, shared links, etc, there is a “Hide” button that you can use. I hope you won’t choose to do that to me, but if you do, I will understand, my facebook life is not everyone’s facebook life.  I have used “hide” before, and it is much better than some one you think is a “friend” to find out than in fact you are not, and they don’t want to be “friends” with you anymore.

Thank you for listening,

Your facebook “fan” not friend,

Lisa