Clipmark

A PERSON could go mad trying to pinpoint the moment he lost a friend. So seldom does that friend make his feelings clear by sending out an e-mail alert.

As social networking becomes ubiquitous, people with an otherwise steady grip on social etiquette find themselves flummoxed by questions about “unfriending” people: how to do it, when to do it and how to get away with it quietly.

“If someone with more than 1,000 friends unfriends me, I get offended,” said Greg Atwan, an author of “The Facebook Book,” a satirical guide. “But if someone only has 100 friends, you understand they’re trying to limit it to their intimates.”

Of course, not all unfriendings are equal.