You just don't love me no more

I have been unfriended. I've read a couple of articles about this phenomenon and am working to analyze the experience and categorize it appropriately. For example, I read about a father whose daughter unfriended him to punish him for grounding her. I read about Burger King's viral Sacrifice a Friend promotion. (You unfriend 10 people and Burger King sends you a free Whopper, and sends your ten unfriends a note informing them they've been dumped for a sandwich.) I've read people who say they need to prune their lists periodically and remove anyone with whom they no longer feel connected.

At this point I'm thinking I fall into that third category, although I haven't read extensively enough to figure out how many more categories I don't yet know about. I know I didn't DO anything to my unfriend, who I've not seen in a few years, or talked to in a few months. I don't post obnoxious political propaganda messages, nor do I update my status to inform the public what I'm eating, wearing, thinking or doing from one moment to the next. So I'm ruling these out as reasons to curb me.

What I also don't do is "comment" or "like" very much. I'm a slacker. I surf around when I'm bored and log out. I don't keep in touch, much. I don't send out a lot of virtual love. So maybe I've just become irrelevant.

My other thought was that my unfriend doesn't like my friends (ie: her ex-husband). But he says they're still friends. So that puts me back in the irrelevant category, I think.

I've laughed at unfriendships in the past and marveled that there were people in the world who'd A) unfriend, and B) care about being unfriended.

Now that I've been unfriended I see that it's a bit more disorienting than one might think, and my own theory is that it's troubling because of the fact that we are using the word "friend" as a verb.

If I knew that N had "unlinked" from me that would seem less of a rejection than being "unfriended" seems. Because what are you if you are not my friend? Unfriend? Are you my enemy? It's sketchy social ground.

Does this mean I am no longer welcome to send her a Christmas card? (I never sent one before, but now I'll miss not doing it.) Does this mean if I run into her in the real world I am to pretend not to know her? Does this mean she hates me?

There's no closure when you are unfriended.

In fact, I'd never have noticed except for the fact that another mutual friend pointed out that she had been unfriended by N, which led me to check and find out the same thing. There is no notification to tell you that you've been dumped (unless Burger King sends it). There's no final farewell goodbye message. Just silence. It's a cruel imitation of reality where friendships grow quiet and dissolve. But this makes it so much more concrete. Why didn't I feel an empty space in my chest the moment I was deleted? When was that moment and what preceded it? What was she thinking about me when she made the decision to relegate me to the recycle bin?

I'm fascinated.

And I'm far too late to experiencing this strange digital phenomenon to have anything original to say about it. I've just joined the masses of the unfriended, the Unfriends.