For several years, I’ve kept my online life almost completely separate from my real life.
And the “almost” is a technicality that I’m about to get to regarding who I have friended on Facebook.
On Facebook, I have a variety of filters that I use depending on people’s interests, but the filters are also set up in such a way that I can easily separate those that I have friended on it who I know in real life and those who I know over the Internet. For instance, I don’t have any friends in real life who would be interested in a fandom, or fandoms, and feel that it’s better to exclude them from posts that I make related to the fandoms that I am part of. If I want to post something that I’d be far more comfortable with real-life friends of mine reading, I filter them into the post and my Internet friends out of it. This works as well as it does because I post next to nothing public. The only things that I post that are public are non-profit fundraisers such as the annual birthday one and Giving Tuesday stuff, which you don’t appear to have a choice in… I mean, not unless that has changed between now and a few days ago when I posted a non-profit fundraiser for Claire’s Place. If it has, please let me know. As for my Twitter, it’s relegated to people that I know (and would like to follow) online since I don’t appear to have that many real-life friends who even use the site. Last time I checked, I didn’t have any. All of them were on Facebook. However, having a place where I can discuss fandom with people that are on that same level has been nice — I also went a step further and made it so that it’s not searchable by anyone who does know me in real life just to continue to keep the two apart.
On Facebook, my friends’ list (and number of mutual friends, I want to say) is not visible to anyone but me.
Of course, none of this is against the people that I know in real life… but like I’ve said, the things that I have in common with them are different from the things that I have in common with Internet friends. A lot different.