I find that "friending" communities is helpful. I get the journals of people who have similar interests delivered to me in one place, without having to "friend" specific people. I usually scan past those entries that are not of interest to me. I also bookmark LJ journals of people who I want to look in on from time to time, but not see everyday.

This works especially well with people with whom I have a bad history, or exes, or exes of exes etc...