A Note To All Of My Facebook Friends

It's not you, it's me.

I've ended my two week relationship with Facebook. I just couldn't take it anymore. I finally realized that I didn't need another web site to keep track of in my life.

At first, it was really exciting (as most relationships are at the beginning), finding out what all of my "friends" were up to, what they liked, what they disliked, what games they were playing, who knew who. But then I realized that not only was the damn thing a ridiculous time suck (as if I don't already check my e-mail every 4 minutes), but I was finding out things I didn't really care about. Breaking news on Facebook is something like this: "John is eating a sandwich"... "Sally is hoping she does well on her job evaluation tomorrow"... "Bill is now writing a Facebook entry on what he's doing on Facebook..." Gah. It got to be quite maddening after a while. I'm sure John's sandwich was very, very important to him, but I didn't need to know about it in real-time (note: all those names have been changed to protect the innocent). When someone would delete something from their list of interests (a feature I find creepy - everyone on your list is alerted when you make a change), I would sit there and wonder why. Hey, Titanic isn't one of your favorite movies now? You don't like wearing cashmere sweaters anymore? You quit the Girls Who Play Checkers Group? What happened?

One of the main attractions of Facebook (and other social networking sites) is the fact you get to keep track of high school friends you lost track of. Oh, great, there's a selling point to hook me. There's a reason why I lost track of them: I graduated from high school and don't want to talk to them anymore. There are only three people from high school who I'm interested in talking with as a 42 year-old, and I already talk to them all the time.

And if we're being completely honest about this, we'd admit that it's not really about making "friends" or networking. It's about obtaining a certain number of friends and showing them what you do and how clever you are. At what point does your list of "friends" become your list of "contacts?" When you have so many friends that you really can't keep track of them and you're just adding them (and they you) just so you can increase that number? 20? 45? 90? 150? When I ended my Facebook account, I had 16 friends, and that's really all I wanted. Anything else would have been just too much to keep track of or worry about. I know one person who has over 3000 "friends" in his Facebook network. When the number gets to be that high, they're no longer friends, they're statistics.

So, to everyone on my Facebook account who didn't know that I left the site (or didn't care - I only heard from one person about leaving - some friends!), I'd just like to say that this isn't about you, it's about me. I couldn't handle the relationship. But I want you to know that you can visit me here at this site or my other sites anytime you want. Or maybe even - gasp! - on the phone or in person.

We might not be able to be "friends" anymore, but we can certainly be friends.