When I first joined Facebook, I was so excited about the platform. I started searching out people I knew personally and also asked to be added as friends of friends. Then Facebook started being a dick about not really knowing the people who you asked to be friends, so I stopped doing that. Regretfully. Because, honestly, I think that meeting new people and making new friends is what I like best about Facebook and what it is really good at. To discourage that seems nuts! Frankly, if someone else wants to make a competing Facebook and let you have different levels of “friends” to include people you have never met in person but who seem to have interesting viewpoints and lifestyles, I will be on it!

About 2 months ago, I realized that I had almost 500 friends. But a whole lot of those people were totally passive and never commented on my posts or shared anything with me. So, I started deleting people. The only ones that I kept were people who met certain criteria:

• They don’t lie to me
• They have never stolen from me
• They comment occasionally when I post something they find funny or interesting
• They want a real friend – not a fan to just kiss their butt
• They don’t want to be friends just to pitch me something or try to sell me something
• They don’t have to agree with me – just be respectful to me and my other friends during any heated discussions

I was able to get rid of over half of those so-called friends. And the ones who are left are much more precious to me.