The 7 Stages Of Coping With An Ex’s Unexpected Facebook Unfriending

Last weekend, I saw a number of posts via her mom’s Facebook account that my ex-girlfriend and (I thought) lifelong friend Bailey was celebrating her graduation from school. (Not undergrad. I’m no cradle robber.) I texted her a quick congrats and then went to look at her Facebook profile, because she loves to post pictures of pretty much everything she does, and I wanted to check them out.

Much to my surprise, she had unfriended me, without warning, discussion or articulated reason. I have no idea why she did this, which is probably the main reason it has upset me on such an intimate level.

But I’m coping with it. Here’s a recap of the seven stages I went through to get to the point I’m at now, which is essentially that I no longer give a fuck.

1. Shock or disbelief

OH MY GOD. Bailey and I are not friends on Facebook? But we’ve been friends since pretty much the day that I signed up for my Facebook account. As soon as I was finished randomly friending hot girls who were in my college class, I sent her a friend request! And we’ve been friends in real life since I was like 13 years old! This is pure insanity. Pure fucking insanity.

2. Denial 

Maybe Bailey made a mistake and accidentally clicked the “Unfriend” button and then accidentally clicked that yes, she was sure she wanted to unfriend me. Maybe she was sleepwalking. I don’t know. There’s just no way she would actually do this. I’m going to send her a friend request right now. Bet she’ll accept in a quick second and then we’ll laugh about this later.

3. Anger

This is bullshit. After everything I’ve done for her. I’ve always been there for her, at least mostly, and she’s said on more than one occasion (and in writings that I keep in my memory box in my bedroom back home) that she could never imagine me not being a part of her life. We stayed friends even after she cheated on her boyfriend with me and then told me nothing would come of it and that she was never ever going to tell him. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know today, poor chap. Whatever. She sucks. It’s her loss. It’s not like her being my friend had any real fucking benefit anyway.

4. Bargaining

I’ll send her a few texts trying to get to the bottom of this. I guess maybe I did something wrong and although I have no idea what it is, I still feel like I should apologize, you know, just in case I did something that offended her. I’ll tell her to enjoy her special day and that I’m sorry for whatever it is I did. Maybe she will take this olive branch and enter a dialogue with me.

5. Guilt

Damnit. I definitely did something. I had to have. I mean, I’ve done terrible things to her in the past, or maybe she just found out about something awful that I did to her that she didn’t know about until recently. I had to have messed up somehow. I feel terrible about this if I’ve hurt her in any way. Maybe I wrote something disparaging about her or that she thought was about her even though it wasn’t and that got her all pissed off. (I’ve been unfriended for this before.)

6. Depression

I don’t know what to do with myself. I feel like I’ve been punched in the stomach. Why doesn’t she want me in her life? Why am I so depressed about this? Why don’t I ever have a good reason for why I am depressed about the stuff that gets me down the worst? Where have all the cowboys gone? Life doesn’t make sense. I bet she’s so much happier than me, out there on the West Coast in all of the sunshine with her rich boyfriend. I don’t want to think or do anything. I just want to go into my bed and watch Frasier and then sleep for 15 hours straight.

7. Acceptance

I am no longer friends with Bailey, apparently. In fact, I suppose I’m no longer a part of her life at all, in any way, unless you count memories. This is unfortunate, I guess, but it probably won’t really have much of an effect on my day-to-day life. I just hope that her mom still wants to maintain our friendship. She’s a cool lady and I would hate to lose her in this strange social media split. Oh well. Bailey can unfriend me on Facebook, but she’s never getting that V-Card back.