Pruning the tree

In all my Second Life, I have not deleted a friend. Well, okay, I deleted one jerk. But in more than three years, I made it a policy to never delete a friend from my list. Until today.

I started out with almost 300 people in my friends list. And that probably would have been many more if it weren't for other people deleting me from their own lists, or for people canceling their accounts.

But, lately, I've been betrayed, I've been lied to, I've been taken advantage of. With friends like that, who needs enemies? So, today, I'm cleaning up my list. Granted, those are in a very small minority, but there are so many in my list that I've only spoken with once two years ago, and more than half don't even log in anymore. So I'll be clearing those out too.

The only ones that will stay in my friends list are those I have a strong connection with and who have a positive impact in my life, as well as business connections. If I have a doubt whether to leave someone in or let them go, I'll leave them in for now.

I am also going to start a policy of not accepting friendships until I've encountered the person at least twice. If people need to keep track of me, I'll give them my card.

If you're one of the people trimmed off, you can still find me through search. But if you feel bad about it, I'm afraid I can't take responsibility for that. I'm responsible for taking you off the list, but you're responsible for how you feel about it.

They say that, if you want big sweet and juicy fruits, you prune the tree. I'm pruning this tree.