Dear On-Line, Visible to Everyone, Diary:
A couple of months ago I deactivated my Facebook account. Cold turkey. Just. Like. That! Many people wouldn't understand the sheer willpower it would take for me to do it, but those are the people who don't know me. You see I took great pride in making one, hopefully funny and/or thought provoking, status each day. I loved it when someone commented, liked or even spoke to me in person about it. It's not like I had thousands of friends, but the ones I had seemed to enjoy my writing, and I, in turn, enjoyed receiving praise. It's somewhat shameful, but I thrive on positive affirmation. It all hearkens back to that childhood thing where, upon cleaning your room, your mother had to be dragged over to see the fruits of your labour. You're pretty sure you did a good thing, but it's a mini high hearing it from someone else.
I also enjoyed looking at photos of the places my friends had traveled . If the house was warm enough it was almost like vacationing for free. Almost. Many friends had interesting things to say, articles to share and invitations extended. I liked pages of my interests and was able to get some really great tips on canning, dates for shows I was interested in, along with seeing new shoes and clothes. So why did I quit Facebook again? Sigh ...
I was in the middle of playing Candy Cane Blitz or Bubble Witch Saga or some other mind numbing puzzle game, attempting to procrastinate long enough to run out of time to clean my bathroom when I decided I'd had enough. Enough of reading statuses like:
"Billy is 10 today. I can't believe how quickly the time has gone. I'm so proud of you buddy!"
OR
"Celebrating 15 years of marriage today. I love you honey!"
OR
"Anna got straight As on her grade 5 report card. Way to go!"
It's not that these are not noteworthy accomplishments, it's just that (frankly) I don't give a shit. Harsh, huh? It's true though. I don't really care. I don't know your kid that well otherwise I'd have given him/her a card. Same goes for the anniversary. And let's face it, if someones kid got straight Cs we'd never hear a word. It's just bragging, plain and simple. Nobody posts a status like, "If Billy doesn't get out of bed before noon today I swear I'm turning off the internet," or "Husband came home drunk again last night. Time to find a lawyer." It's all candies and puppy dogs.
Oh! And the people who don't get I'm joking on my status and make stupid-arsed comments back at me drove me berserk. There's also people who thought they knew me from reading my status. I had a friend ask me if I ever got my coffee and I was racking my brain wondering what they heck they were talking about. Turns out I'd made a joke about not getting my coffee on my status several days before and suddenly that's what we had to talk about once we were face to face. Seriously? I wrote about my love of coffee at least once a week, but in truth I only drink one latte a day. If you know me well, you know that about me already.
Then there's the person who has to constantly update their status. I would say, "Don't even get me started," but I started it... One, maybe two, statuses are peachy keen with me. Anything beyond that and I hide your status (only most important please). I don't care what you ate for lunch. I don't care what your kids are doing after school. Keep it simple. Cut the cord.
This segues nicely in to people who post too many photos. Whoever came up with Instagram should be jailed. Did I need to see everything you did today? No I did not. Ever. I know what food looks like, so feel free to not whip out your camera at every possible opportunity. Did I need to see step-by-step pictures of what you cooked today? Hell no. Pictures of your gas mileage? Yawn. I'm not saying that I don't enjoy pictures (see vacationing picture creeping above), but it's the constant documenting of daily, boring life that chaps my behind.
Here's another weird thing: I "friended" people who weren't really my friends. They weren't my enemies, I didn't hate them or wish them any harm, but they certainly weren't coming over for coffee once a week. If I were being perfectly honest I could have paired down my friends to maybe 20 people. I was thumbing through my grade 8 annual and came across a picture of a Facebook friend. Beside his/her name was written the word "jerk" or something to that effect. Not only did I not really know this person well enough to call them my friend, but waaaaaay back when I didn't even like them.
So here I am, for all intents and purposes, not on Facebook any more. I won't say it's easy. I still see things that are aching to be made in to statuses. Sometimes, and this is a little dirty, I access my husbands rarely used account just to play a little Bubble Witch Saga. The rare time I do this I find myself scrolling through his news feed, drinking in the latest tidbits of common friends, ultimately annoying myself and reaffirming my commitment to remain one of the six people in North America who do not use social media (my thoughts cannot be contained in the minimal number of characters allotted by Twitter, therefore I'm not a Twit).
Pinterest doesn't count though because it's obviously a plot to make women cook and clean more ... and make crafts. Who doesn't love crafts?
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