A friend of mine suffered a LinkedIn unfriending the other day. He wasn’t sure whether he should be traumatised or relieved.

Getting unfriended or unfollowed in social media is like hearing some direct feedback from someone who doesn’t know you’re within earshot. You don’t get a note saying that someone has unfriended or unfollowed you. Instead, you find out about it indirectly.  In my friend’s case, he started getting daily suggestions to link in with this person. My friend has connected with this person, met him, they attended a social function, and then this person had deemed the relationship not worthy of maintaining and so severed it.

This is a good thing, in my opinion. It’s like getting an early ‘no’ in sales, so you’re not being strung along for weeks and months by someone who can’t or won’t say no. I think it’s good for two reasons:

1) They’re saving you the time of currying their favour. This buys you back time to figure out how to bypass them and their influence.

2) They’re not worthy of connecting with you anyway. Some accurate self-esteem is required to adopt this position!

Do you agree? Like many things, you can argue both ways.