A Friend Purge, a Memory Test, and Facebook Weirdness
Facebook feels less like a social network these days...
This week I “unfriended” 139 people from my Facebook list of 639 connections. It didn’t start out that way.
It began with a couple of mild skirmishes. Nothing serious. I posted something on my wall that—well—stirred the pot. Inappropriate? Maybe not. Controversial? Definitely.
The comments rolled in, full of outrage rhetoric. Two people posted classic passive/aggressive replies before quietly unfriending me. Understandably, it was dumb to share something so controversial. I thought I was being hopeful. Instead I triggered full-blown cases of TDS. It cost me two “friends.”
One was an old high school buddy I briefly worked with after moving back to Michigan. We hadn’t seen each other since graduation, except on Facebook. When we reconnected in person, he pulled out his phone and scrolled through old photos—mostly of his wife, a girl I knew well back in school. Pictures from 40 years ago, before she died shortly after becoming an adult.
It hit me: he was still living in an era long forgotten as some of us do in our later years.
That always unsettles me.
The other was someone I worked with in Florida in the mid-2000s. She and her husband helped me manage a hotel. We had great camaraderie, and later I gave her private yoga lessons, and didn’t charge a penny. She asked me for references over the years, and though our lives drifted in different directions, we stayed loosely connected.
She’s still often the first to “like” or heart one of my posts. But back in 2016, her Trump Derangement Syndrome nearly blew things up. She posted angry, hateful messages daily—full-on vitriol. She was already in her 60s, and the rage surprised me. I let it slide then. We still stayed in touch occasionally for job referrals, hospitality chatter, and references.
I found the snooze button back then. It served me well throughout the years, especially lately, since the election.
Reconnecting with people is weird. Disorienting. I’m terrible with names. Faces I usually recognize—unless time’s been unkind. But names? Nope. And to make it worse, I assign nicknames in my head.
It’s gotten me into trouble more than once.
There was Cuban Yaya. Not her real name, of course. I started calling her that to soften the reality. She once sent her red panties to a friend’s husband on a bet that she could steal him. (She did.) Ever since, she’s lived in my mental Rolodex as Panty Reina.
Then there was Vodka Sue—from high school. She visited a couple years back to “reminisce.” Fifteen hours and half a gallon of vodka later, I remembered why I’d forgotten her.
Neanderthal Charles worked with me on a ship in Miami. His hairy back showed right through our thin tuxedo shirts. He drank Heineken, smelled like weed, and mumbled through every sentence—except one. At the end of every shift, he’d suddenly perk up and shout, “Let’s go have some beers!”
His real name? Something absurdly proper—Charles Something-the-Third, from Maryland. And don’t call him Chuck. He insisted on being addressed as “Charles the Third.” Old money. Yachts. The kind of wealth that doesn’t bother explaining itself.
And who could forget White Wine Wendy? I used to call her The Event Planner—to be polite. She loved organizing things. Bridal showers, baby showers, retirement parties—anything that required a signup sheet and a spreadsheet.
She’d kick it off with a group text full of cheer and subtle digs. “Let’s all contribute something simple—homemade is always nicer, don’t you think?” Cue the passive-aggressive praise when people delivered: “Oh wow, you actually made that? Impressive!”
But when the real work showed up—chairs to haul, balloons to blow, cakes to pick up—she'd disappear. Then, just before guests arrived, she’d breeze in, perfectly coiffed, clutching a bottle of overpriced Chardonnay and a purse full of gossip.
She’d make the rounds with compliments laced in innuendo, spread around a few flirty comments that made everyone vaguely uncomfortable, and accept praise for an event she barely touched. Classic.
After the unfriending incident, I figured it was time to clean house. See who was actually a friend, and who was just... filler.
First discovery? Thirty or so people were dead.
That sent me down a rabbit hole—obits, old posts, photos frozen in time. I found a few surprises.
Blaze Winslow was one of them. We worked together at the Sands in Las Vegas back in the ’80s. After our shifts, we’d hit the bars. Blaze always had one drink, then switched to soda. He told stories about the rodeo life, growing up in Ruidoso, New Mexico.
Except none of that was true. His real name was Stanik Mazur, from Newark, New Jersey. Not 49 like he claimed—he was 60 when he died.
I wish I could remember why I even joined Facebook in 2009
One of the first people who tried to connect was a woman named Jami Baker. No bells rang. She messaged me with life updates, and I still couldn’t place her. I had to call a friend to help me out. Turns out, Jami and I sat next to each other in band for four years, swapping second and last chair in the flute section.
We were tight back then. How could I have forgotten her? We shared our darkest secrets and traded the limelight back and forth for being the worst in our woodwind section.
That’s how it’s gone. Classmates reached out. I didn’t just have to remember names, I had to remember why I knew them. Some memories returned quickly. Others? Nothing.
In fourth grade, one of the girls, her name was Kelly, used to beat me up and pull my hair for my lunch money. I was the new kid in a small town, and she made sure I knew it.
By high school, we were sneaking Marlboros behind the gym and passing around cheap booze in someone's car. She wasn’t part of any crowd—she was the crowd. Tough, magnetic, and a little wild. I wasn’t in her circle, but I wanted to be.
We got caught smoking once—by the football coach, who later became her brother-in-law. I got suspended from three golf matches. I’d forgotten all of that until years later, when I heard she was dying.
I wrote her a letter. Told her what I remembered—the bruises, the laughter, the strange comfort of being pulled into her orbit. I forgave and thanked her. That letter was read out loud at her funeral.
Before she passed, we reconnected on Facebook. I asked if she remembered me.
“Of course,” she said. “You were my best friend.”
I forget names all the time, but that moment? I’ll never forget.
Which makes me wonder—is my memory really that bad?
Just the other day in the grocery store, a handsome Black guy walked past and caught my eye. He looked familiar. I knew him... but the name? Gone. I’d dealt poker to him four nights a week for two years. Still blank.
Carl was off running for meat, so I kept it light and friendly—small talk only—then scurried off before I had to make any introductions.
Later, I looked him up on Facebook. Newt. Or maybe Nate?
See... now I have to go check again.
So here I am. Still scrolling. Still forgetting. Still trying to piece together who mattered—and who was just passing through.
Facebook doesn’t feel like a social network anymore. It’s more like a pop quiz on my own life. Some names make me smile. Others make me cringe.
And hey, if I ever forget your name, don’t take it personally.
Just hope I haven’t nicknamed you Panty Reina. ⬇️
What about you? Any mental nicknames you’ve never admitted out loud? Or do you ever scroll through your friend list and wonder, “How do I know this person again?”
I’m always amazed at how many people I’ve forgotten. There was a girl in high school, Josie, who everyone but me remembered. We had a get together at my best friend’s house in Wiltshire a while back but I couldn’t place her or summon her memory at all. I was familiar with her name - but not with her. I know we hung out in a group and maybe in a pair yet I have zero memories of her. It is the strangest thing. Great column. Patti.
So ironic that you should send out this good read because I’d been having this Jayne thing bothering me for a week or so. I’ve come to expect and accept that the very, very few people I know as friends or are on my Facebook that are Republicans are holdovers from decades of friendship. Truly though you can have decades long relationships with people that in reality they are not your friends they may really only be and ever were coworkers. Beauticians, hairdressers, maids that clean your house, coworkers etc. are not your friends. I went through my cell phone contacts ( you see contacts not friends) yes you too can say it, and they were boggling down my scrolling. I gave those people I didn’t want to eliminate just in case I may need to contact them a designation of zero. I know it sounds so bad. It’s first name and then last name written as Zero. Theirs about 50 of them relegated to the bottom of the contacts list. Not that I want to get rid of these friends/ coworkers because I may want to contact them at some time and need the number. Just not bogging down contacts list. I’ve done the same to Facebook. Those people I want to share my communications to automatic are in that file and then most of the people are in the “ don’t post anything on my page) file. I respect that. They don’t want recipes and songs, history, politics and whatever else I send out to bog down their Facebook. Also those people I still have left that don’t appreciate my sharing of intelligent interesting knowledge I have of politics that aren’t their political view. I’ve restricted that. Just tell me you don’t want any politics shared because that’s not your view and I’m fine either way that. Just because we have different political views doesn’t mean I don’t want to be friends with. I’m good with that, I can tolerate this in a person and it’s ok. Just tell me, we can still be friends with decades long good memories of great times spent together. I would never ever remove you and block you. I value my friendships. I worked with Jayne on the ships. She’s English and when we all quit the ships 30 years ago she moved to the USA with her boyfriend also English and they got two Americans to marry them so they could get free cards to work. Very illegal I might add. Boyfriend is no longer in the picture. We were friendly on the ships but it was take it or leave it really. She was a cashier in the casino at the time. She was on my Facebook but relegated to that “ don’t post on my site please” and like I said I’m ok with that. We went hiking a couple of times as a big hiking group and about ten years or so I saw her at the Cosmo where works on the floor and stopped to say hi. We were never close like friends barely coworkers on the ships. I never shared anything with her on Facebook all these years of Trump derangement that occurred the first time and now the second time. I always figured her for a liberal. Anyway I respected her wish and never once posted anything to her. She wrote on the page of a mutual friend that she was moving back to England this summer so I congratulated her and very pleasantly said it was so nice to go home. Strange though here’s a person that for decades I don’t hear from and twice she sent me some vile, snide comment about Trump. She had to go out of her way to do that. Why? I didn’t make any comment I just let it go. Then she sends me again a thing about TESLA something joyful and hahaha about people destroying his cars. The comments were gleeful and hateful. Hateful, that’s full of hate that’s what that means. Oh the intolerance of the tolerant. I figured I’d better respond now. I just commented I find it ironic that before Trump, Elon Musk was the lefts golden boy, their Green darling and now he’s no longer environmentally worthy. He’s a bad guy? Jayne unfriended me and blocked me. Here I am minding my own business for decades with no contact from her and now she decides to communicate with me. What do I realize from this? I was never her friend. I was somebody she knew on the ships and like so many people that I knew that I didn’t continue an association with she was and should have remained one of those people in the island photograph that you just can’t remember her name.