Let’s get something straight: This is not a Facebook hate post.

That being said, I’m running a little experiment of disabling my Facebook account. Why you ask?

I first joined Facebook to stay in contact with a group of friends I’d met through an online direct sales forum. I was quitting direct sales and no longer visited the forum, but wanted to stay in touch with the friends I’d met there. They were my very first “internet friends” and meant a lot to me, even though I could no longer really relate to their threads any longer. These friends saw me through one of the most challenging times of my life, when money was short and my relationship was in the toilet. Next I had a few “real life” friends sign up and suddenly I had this beautiful, amazing walled garden where I could let it all out , carefree. I ranted, I raved, I cried, I shouted, I giggled – early on this core group saw an unfiltered version of me.

Then the high school acquaintances, professional connections and more distant family members found me. I made a decision early on to largely keep my professional contacts off Facebook. I’m glad I did so, but my posts became more and more filtered as the “Friend” list increased. Now, they were all getting the facade, the highlights because I donned the “happy” mask. My closer friends were still caught the true story through instant messaging, text messaging and phone calls, but Facebook gave us a new, shared way to communicate with each other.

Facebook was a way to enhance our communication rather than replace it. I felt sublimely connected to my friends and enjoyed reading their posts about what they were doing, seeing pictures of what they were eating and in general experiencing their lives with them. The great part? We all commented back and forth on each other’s updates and photos. Our conversations spilled over from real life and into the digital realm. All in all, we grew closer as the vines of our lives intertwined and grew together, using Facebook as the connecting fertilizer.

Then something changed.

I can’t place the blame on my friends. The Facebook algorithms prioritize who’s in my Newsfeed and now it’s filled with memes, reshares and fluff. Instead of seeing real updates from my friends, I see content that doesn’t even remotely relate to me. Here’s a classic example: I simply thought one of my friends just didn’t use Facebook very often. One evening, over pizza and wine she’s telling me about a breakup and a poem she posted. I never saw the poem. When I visited her Timeline I realized she had been posting every day and it never once showed up in my Newsfeed. Instead I see a photo of someone I don’t know; gliding down my Newsfeed simply because one of my friends “liked” it and the original poster doesn’t have their privacy settings in place. And don’t get me started on privacy settings, that’s an entirely different collection of posts.

Facebook has become less personal.

Conversing with a friend, I start to share a story I’d earlier posted on Facebook. Since she didn’t comment or “like” the post I guessed she hadn’t yet seen it. Instead, she cuts me short: “Yeah, I saw your post on Facebook.” And that was it. No dialog, no joy at conversing with each other, just friends passively watching each other from a distance. I’m guilty, I’ve done it too. We’ve become quiet ships, passing by in the dark silence of the night.

I’ve made a decision.

I no longer want my friends to have this passive peepshow into my life and I don’t want to have the same view of theirs. I want us to talk. I want a personal email. I want to find a way to share photos in a way that encourages us to talk about them with each other. I want to chortle over sushi about the random events and cry together over wine when heartbreak attacks. In short, I want my friends back. The only way I can do that is to cut the cord.