Escape from Facebook

 

I’ve escaped from Facebook.

I’d not been there very long. Leaving is like escaping from the fug of a smoky room. Happenstance brought me there, and for a while I lingered within its babble. I even became quite good at posting messages and uploading video links.

By that time I had fourteen friends.

“Would you like to be friends with The Teenager?” Facebook gently prompted me one day.

I pressed the decline button.

After him they then offered me hundreds and hundreds of his ‘friends’.

Again I declined.

I didn’t want to be a spy in his world.

In my small Facebook world some of my friends were friends of friends.

I didn’t want to upset my real friends by declining them, especially when these strangers had made a special request to link up. I felt that there could possibly be some connection amongst them: another mind with similar thoughts.

Some were ‘friends’ I had previously worked with.

Some, a miniscule number, were real friends.

For a while it seemed like fun.

But then I began to become leery of Facebook. I wanted to keep my soul to myself, especially the bruised bits. And I didn’t like announcing any positive events either: not that there was anything especially wonderful to announce. You see, I feared that my Yin might make others aware of their Yang, or that my Up might make others aware of their Down.

Then it really started to get to me. A computer is a great companion. But Facebook reminds you that you are indeed sitting in a room alone, and that the world is passing you by. Facebook is wonderful when you are riding the crest of Life’s waves but when you are finding yourself tumbling down, and bouncing along, round and round in the shallows, well it can get to you eventually. It can wear you down. Well, it did to me.

One of my friends, a work acquaintance from a previous time, unsettled me by declaring one day. “I’ve done all my ironing.”

My own un-ironed clothes formed a mountain larger than K2 and just as perilous to tackle.

Another trilled in October, “I’ve bought all my Christmas presents, and I’ve already wrapped them!”

This when I hardly have a bean to my name.

“Kiddo has just come home from work and we are going out for a romantic dinner tonight.”

This being read by a singleton eating cold pasta coated with lukewarm soup.

And so it went on.

Others holding up achievements, in which they took well deserved pleasure and delight, and all of which I sincerely applauded.

But Facebook can become one long perpetual Christmas letter- you know the sort- the ones written by the well off and happily married English: Jeremy is now playing first trumpet in the orchestra after getting ten ‘A’ star GCSEs. Tarquin has just had his second novel published at the age of twelve (late we know) but we couldn’t get his book to the printers on time because we hadn’t by then returned from our second round the world trip. The one paid for by Victoria’s multimillion Internet business, the one she started on her fourth birthday, six months ago.

Unlike Christmas letters that can delight and amuse in turns, and then be thrown away and forgotten, Facebook is relentless. It’s like being in a cage with a multitude of talking, successful budgies.

“I have the perfect family” trills one.

“We’ve just got a new puppy," chirps another.

I used to press the ‘like’ key, or more usually leave a positive comment on my friends’ success and achievements. But then jealousy creeps in, for I am no saint. A puppy! I would love to have a puppy.

“Second novel coming out soon,” one trills.

“Wow,” I trill back. Hoping that envy is not betrayed in a three letter word.

I can’t say that my own trilling messages were totally ignored. Some were occasionally picked up and responded to…eventually.

Perhaps it was because mine were darker.

“Free Tibet meeting in March.”

Silence.

“This is my favourite song.”

Silence.

“I’ve just become an axe murderer.”

Silence.

More and more I became aware that I was slipping behind a glass window simply watching others’ lives, whilst my own status updates and posts were largely ignored. I was standing in the distant periphery of their lives, nothing more than applause.

And then there were the ‘apps’. The different applications you could use. I joined Farm Town and started farming, planting virtual crops and creating a virtual world, whilst my own garden, my real garden, became filled with dandelions. I spent hours watering other people’s virtual flowers, or harvesting their virtual crops. I must confess I even hired similar lost souls to harvest mine too. Though most did not hang around at the end to chat. They were only in it for the virtual money.

And that’s one of the problems with Facebook, it can take up so much time. It can also leave you feeling lonely and inadequate, if for example like me, you don’t have the enough confidence to stride through Facebook with trumpets blaring; or have courage enough to reveal real hurts confident that legions will respond to your cries.

It is even more troubling when Facebook tells you there are friends online, right there and then, right at that moment, NOW! And so you click on their name to chat with them. And suddenly they are no longer on online. They have gone. Suddenly. Just like that. Just as your name appeared on their screen. Vanished.

And so I’ve escaped.

But before I end this post. I just like to say, that all the ironing is done, that the dandelions in the garden are being dug up one by one. And that there is a possibility that I will have bought and wrapped up all my Christmas presents by June!

Press the ‘like’ key.

Or leave a comment.

Erm…I’m only joking…but for a minute there you almost believed me! About the ironing, I mean.

So my Facebook site is now closed, and I will instead face the sun!