The Psychology of "Unfriending"

On Facebook there is a feature which allows users to remove people from their list of friends, dubbed by users as "unfriending". I wish Facebook would enhance this feature. Unfriending someone is childish and cowardly. It allows people to silently end a friendship without having to confront the offender (or victim, as the case may be). Such a tool is used primarily for petty and emotional purposes and rarely for logical reasons.

I consider myself quite fortunate. Despite my controversial nature, my list of friends has been steadily growing. There have been a few casualties on the way up, but I can count them on one hand. In no case was I unfriended by someone I had any emotional connections to (that I've noticed anyway). While I don't miss them, I can't help but wonder what the catalyst was. Such things are important to know. Why? When you run a business, and customers drop away, you try to identify the cause in order to improve your business. I regard social networking friendships, blog subscribers, etc. in the same fashion. My goal is to generate discussion on difficult topics, while not driving people away. It would be nice to identify the exact post or cause of such an extreme action.