I hate Facebook. I hate MySpace. I almost hate Friendster, but I use it on occasion to reconnect with long lost friends who have changed their addresses. But what I hate most -- since MySpace never really did anything to me, personally -- is that people who barely know me will "Facebook" me, or Friendster me, or whatever. And by "people," I mean people who don't send me personal emails, who barely know me, who are... aquaintances. (Yes, you're acquaintances, you are! There's nothing wrong with that! Geez.)
And what's worse than these people indiscriminately trying to "be my friend" without ever having to do the work of a real friend, i.e. care, spend time, call me, know what I'm doing, hang out with me, etc., ... what's WORSE than these people doing... what? Trying to have more facebook friends than anyone else? Trying to look cool to other facebook people? Whatever, who knows, since it's not really a thing I embrace or partake in more than 10 minutes every other month. BUT. As I was saying -- BUT. But what's worse than these people annoying me with their requests to be their "friend" is the outrageous fact that I actually say yes to avoid being rude. That is worse. That is atrocious. That is stupid. That is me being a wimp.
So what do I do? I don't want to quit Friendster, and besides, I deleted all my so-call acquaintances a few months ago -- brutal perhaps, but more honest -- and now the 24 people left are truly people who have shared my life at some point. But Facebook, Myspace, how many more are there?! And I'm convinced that Facebook must just go into your address book and find anyone else who is a facebook member and harvest those addresses and send friend requests on your behalf. I can't believe that people I barely know actually spend all day looking through facebook to see if I've finally become a member. I just have more faith in humanity than that.
Hmm. So my thought is two-fold. Or three-fold. My thought is that I will be a most obnoxious facebook member, and if you facebook me, I will admit to doing horrendous things with you. Didn't I hook up with you on New Year's? Didn't I rub nipples with your wife when ta was high last new years? Didn't your huband star in that indie-bestiality flick I was directing? OR. If that doesn't deter people from becoming my friend, I will have a most horrendous facebook page, railing against all facebok users everywhere. OR. And this goes back to my friend Naveen, I will cancel my account and block the website on my computer. The most drastic appraoch, but then I was raised Indian and never to upset other people, especially those white ones who can make your life hell. (Maybe that's not exactly what my mom said, but I listened to what she DID, not what she SAID.) Anyway.
Do we really ALL need to be connected ALL the f*&*!cking time? Come on, really?
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2 tussocks:
"Do we really ALL need to be connected ALL the f*&*!cking time?"
Excellent, excellent, excellent question. Here's the thing: I feel very disconnected much of the time. And I don't know if it is technology to blame or if it's just adulthood. Let me tackle technology here: It seems the vast majority of the people I care about spend most of the day seated in front of a computer. It's as if I can just reach out, through the computer screen, and just poke them in the eyeball, at any time of day, and there they will be. I can also virtually poke anybody on the planet in the eyeball, it seems... I just have to Google them, or Friendster them, or whatever. And there they are.
And yet.... they aren't.
Something that is fleshy and life-like is missing and has been replaced with something pixelly. And maybe that's why everyone needs to feel soooo connected? Because we're actually soooo disconnected? Are we overcompensating? So it's like we're sincerely trying to get connected, but doing it in the most misguided possible way, i.e., instead of actually building intimate, real relationships with people who are present, we try to feign connections to whatever acquaintances we have, regardless of how distant. Maybe? I don't know. I am not on Facebook and in fact had never even heard of it until this blog, so I'm obviously out of the loop -- I'm also not on Friendster or MySpace, and even my blog is private, accessible only by a small group of people I know and like -- and maybe that's why my own loneliness is so palpable for me -- because I'm not engaged in all the pseudo-intimacy that's available on Facebook, MySpace, etc. Maybe if I got a Friendster account, I'd at least have some sort of feeling of being pseudo-connected and maybe that would be better. But for now, I'm going to stick with my disconnected feeling -- at least I know that's real.
As for deleting my Friendster account... yeah, I gotta say, I don't miss it. So maybe the answer is to delete your Facebook account? I don't know. If not, I am totally in favor of the idea of your becoming the most obnoxious Facebook user ever :P
I deleted my Facebook account. They wanted my name to be TWO words, which I find very Eurocentric. And I being obnoxious wasn't satisfying.
As dor connection, I actually wonder if chat rooms aren't more connected.
But even more connected, there are cuddle groups in different cities specifically for group cuddling and getting connected.
or we could roll around with one another at the park...?
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