Why I'm Un-friending My Husband on Facebook

It's official, I'm a loser. My daughter refuses to friend me on Facebook.

Yes, I am one of the grown-ups who's making Facebook uncool. Once the purvey of hip teens, Facebook is now mainstream and middle-aged.

Obama is on Facebook, as is Oprah, and they're both older than I am, so you'd think I'd fit right in.

But alas, it would appear that the leader of the free world and the queen of talk and philanthropy possess more panache than me. Because not only does my daughter refuse to friend me, but none of her friends will accept my Internet overtures either. Teenagers I have lovingly welcomed into my home for over a decade have now turned their electronic backs on me.

Apparently having a picture of your mom, or your friend's mom, on your Facebook page is social suicide (even if it is an airbrushed publicity shot in which she has been assured that she looks almost un-mom like).

Not that they'll come right out and tell you they're rejecting you. Oh no, they hide behind a firewall of technology and just simply ignore your request. So you send it again, and you keep wondering, did they get it? Are they mulling it over? Do I not understand how this thing works? Will I know if they choose me?

It's Junior High all over again, and I'm still hoping that the cool kids will let me sit at the popular table during lunch.

But the kids aren't doing anything different than many adults. You send in a proposal or a request for a meeting, and if people aren't interested they don't even send you back "no thanks." The Internet has put shunning on turbo charge.

At least in junior high nobody knew how many people signed your yearbook. But now, if you allow someone access to your Facebook page, they can see exactly how many friends you have, and how many people wrote on your wall.

Welcome to the new world, where the popularity contest called life is judged electronically and you can be shunned with the click of a mouse.

Blogs with hit counters tell the world which head cheerleaders we should pay attention to, and which bores to ignore, while Web site rankings feel like the electronic equivalent of voting for Mr. or Miss Freshman.

I send out a weekly E-zine, and if one person unsubscribes, I'm scouring my commentaries with all the insecurity of 13-year-old scanning the mirror for potential zits.

However, while I may have been shunned by my daughter, and some of the cool crowd, at least I have more Facebook friends than my poor husband. I looked at his page and all his friends are geeky guys from work and middle-aged people from church.

OMG. That's it! How can I achieve cyberspace popularity when my Facebook page has me linked with a man who is a former Math League nerd?

It's a cold cruel cyber world out there, and if a girl wants to be popular she has to be careful about who her friends are.

So sorry honey, unless you can jazz up your profile or post a picture where you, don't look quite so middle-aged, I'm going to have to un-friend you.

But don't worry sweetie, you can still Twitter me, and no one will know.

Lisa Earle McLeod is a keynote speaker, author and nationally syndicated columnist. Her books include "Forget Perfect" and "Finding Grace When You Can't Even Find Clean Underwear." Contact her at www.ForgetPerfect.com.

Comments

[Mike Alvear - Huffpost Blogger]

Hilarious! But Lisa, I'm with your daughter. I'd block you so fast, so hard and so high you wouldn't know what didn't hit you. I mean, come on, having your mom on facebook...you might as well invite her to hover over you as you flirt, do something you're not supposed to do or worse, do something she knows you'll be proud of (!).

[Theda]

My 22-year old son "accepted" me as his friend of Facebook.....with the promise that I won't write anything that would embarrass him!

[DennyCrane]

This is why I despise Facebook. It encourages the narcissism and self-centeredness we should've ditched back in high school. Now it's about collecting friends, judging others for who's in their friends list, and seeing if people will be interested in what you have to write. People who have healthy self-esteem won't get sucked into tihis silliness. That's great that Facebook lets you connect to long lost friends and classmates. But we already had this with Classmates.com and Friendster. So why did Facebook catch on when these two didn't? Simple. Facebook allows you to talk about yourself. You can post pictures of you, reveal your innermost thoughts, even take quizzes and share the results. It's narcissism at its worst.

[beyondpetty]

I couldn't agree more. Everyone seems to be crying out for attention on Facebook. Its a popularity contest, best not to get sucked into it..
Its a good place to catch up with real friends though.

[MurrayTheSkull]

The reason young people generally don't friend their parents or friends-of­-parents-w­ho-talk-to­-their-par­ents is a fairly simple one. Even if everything they do on facebook is completely perfectly normal and happy and legal and safe, and they're just talking to their friends, they don't want their parents to be able to look at everything that's happening in their life without their say.

Call it an independence thing, but if they want to share something with their parents, they'll share, and if they don't, they don't and that's part of seperation from parents in my opinion. Facebook friending your parents really takes away that option. In one sense it's out of respect, that they want to put on their best adult face for their parents, whereas facebook antics are all about being silly and crazy and, sometimes, lewd.

Which is the last thing: if your parents are your friends on facebook, young folks may feel the need to censor their status and such. And the trouble is, once they friend you, UN-friending a parent practically can't be done, so it's smart to think hard about this issue.

Anyway, my two cents on the issue. Really I think it has more to do with being viewed as an authority figure than with generational warfare.

[athenasword]

Terrific! I just entered the FB world the other day.... and can relate. Who should I add as my friends? Will I have so few friends that I look unpopular? Do I just ignore the friend requests I don't like? What if I say something stupid? Is my profile photo cool enough? Airbrushed enough? And now you tell me that FB is passe. Not cool. Geez, what a new landscape to navigate - and your references to Jr. Hi all over again are so accurate. Thanks for the laugh!

[kotexbarbie]

Cute article-- I'll bet you have a lot of friends on Facebook . You can always friend me :0

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lucy-White/35585056533

[Shrinath]

My friend's daughter, all of 17 years took a good 5 weeks before accepting my friend request. And I am only 31. I think, she would have done the same thing even if I was 25. I believe that it stems from the fact that I am her mom's friend and hence in a different social strata.

And hey, didn't you notice? Nerds are uber cool now. The super nerd is actually called the POTUS. :-)

[LeRoiEstMort]

Learn the jargon: It's De-friending.

[Hattie]

I was on Facebook for two weeks and quit it, because I saw the potential for generational warfare.

[Scott Hunter]

So, my girlfriend just dissed me because I did not accept someone's request to be my friend. I don't even know the person...she said that's not a good reason. brother

On the other hand I do have more friends now than I have ever had in my life before...I think it's 56 now.

I do think that there is one app that someone should develop..."The Virtual Friend" For those who have a problem getting people (whether they know them or not) to accept their friend invitations.

[SaulZ]

The two things I hate about Facebook:

1. Quality of its ads
2. Privacy. I am sure our personal information is at stake on Facebook. Also, I am scared at seeing my children's pages. They have friends that I as a parent have no idea who they are. Therefore, I am scared about their safety too.

Facebook is destined to become bane of the society.

[Paul]

Nah.

Just as soon as grown-ups start using Facebook the kids will do something else.

[Bob Morris]

Perhaps she just wants to chat with friends without you overhearing, just like she probably does in her room when friends are there.