Is there any etiquette for unfriending someone on Facebook? and What do you do if you unfriend someone and they become irate?

Beth says:  When I first got on Facebook, I was all about how many friends I could have.  Then I realized that just like in the "real world", quantity is not necessarily better than quality.  I have "thinned out" my friends list many times.  On occasion, I have had someone "re-friend" me and depending on why I dropped them in the first place (did they spew hateful rhetoric or were they just kind of boring?), I might add them back in.  Now on two occasions, I have received emails demanding to know why they had been unfriended.  In both cases, I ignored it.  Lucky for me, both were people I never see.  However, if this is someone you see and it's going to be awkward, you can go with one of two approaches.  The first is the white lie "Oh, I'm sorry, Carrie, I was just trimming down my list and I must have accidentally omitted you."  Or something along the lines of "Because of my job/some other conflict of interest, I decided to just have close friends and family as my FB friends."  The other is to be honest, "Well, Charlotte, to be honest, I was offended by some of your political comments." Facebook can cause some high drama--try to steer clear of it in whatever way works best for you!

Kevin says:  Recent changes to the architecture of the Facebook site have made this wicket a little less sticky. If you worry about  un-friending someone, you can either hide his or her posts or unsubscribe from updates without actually un-friending them. That said, Facebook does not notify your friend when you un-friend him or her, so I say go ahead and do it!

By the way, you can join the A Gay and a Gal Facebook Group and be guaranteed a drama-free experience!