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Comment by shusaku | Hacker News Reader

> There is nothing "psychotic" about signing up again and adding some old friends again

Maybe not so extreme but if an old friend added me on Facebook I would immediately assume they want something…

But I have to say, I still have Facebook on my phone, and open it from time to time, and it’s pretty barren. I think the consensus among my peers is that sharing something on Facebook is signaling that you’re socially undesirable… so if he signs up again, I think he will find it doesn’t help at all.

(Though I still like Facebook as a contact list of last resort)

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> but if an old friend added me on Facebook I would immediately assume they want something

Fair point as this person does want something. They want that friendship back.

If an old friend adds me on Facebook and then starts trying to sell me some vitamin programme that is very different to if they add me back and are like "Oh man I've missed you, I deleted Facebook but it's so hard as an adult with a job, etc. to keep in touch with people isn't it? How you and the family doing? I'm sorry I just cut off contact like that, I thought it would be better but I was so wrong".

It all depends on the motives and actions. It seems this person is sincere in that they feel they really screwed up just cutting all social ties how they did.

> Fair point as this person does want something. They want that friendship back.

If a friendship stops existing because you delete a Facebook account, it was never a friendship. Or at least wasn't one by then.

It doesn’t always work that way. We sometimes have friends we might not stay actively in touch with, but are able to pick up where we left off when we are back in contact. Friendships are complex.

Ok but then they wouldn't have been lost by deleting the Facebook, the person could just get back in touch. But they seem to believe it would be weird (psychotic even?) if they did, which to me points to them not being actual friendships.

I think there is a difference between 'liking' an old friend's stuff, who you're no longer in actual contact with (not talking or meeting or anything), and kind of re-instating contact by 'adding friend' - even if you only intend to occasionally 'like' stuff in the same way as above, they don't know that after all.

The author explicitly mentions that they want their casual friendships back though:

> It’s perfectly okay to have causal online friends from school, childhood, work etc and only talk through social media and keep up that way.

> I think the consensus among my peers is that sharing something on Facebook is signaling that you’re socially undesirable…

That's fine, because OP missed their friends who do share on Facebook, not your status-chasing peers and their current Meta meta.

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