Let’s talk about Facebook – the social network we all love to hate.  From the former classmates, colleagues and insane, barely-related kinfolk who must have searched your name hourly until they saw you first login (how else could they have found you within a minute of you creating the account) to those privacy settings that keep getting reset every time Zuckerberg steals an idea.  We groan and gripe, yet we keep coming back – playing that “what if” game.  You know it, you don’t need me to do a rundown of “what ifs” that might have played through you head.  I’ll just get silly with it and you’ll say, “now she’s gone too far!” and I’ll retort, “oh NOW I’ve gone too far? I’ve got your “too far” right here, pal.”  Nothing good will come of this.  We’ll leave it at you have your “what ifs” that bring you back and I have mine, which are seriously interesting, but I’m not sharing.  It’s an only child thing.

Here’s what bugs me (caveat: today): I have 198 “friends”.  Now Myers-Briggs tells me that’s seriously not true.  I have about 2.02% of that.  (Why yes, I did just calculate that.) Those four letters drive my soul!  But somewhere between 4 and 198 I realized I was going to have to give up my goal of only befriending people who would come to my funeral and work towards being more “social”.  Myers-Briggs says being social makes me twitchy.  It’s true. I’m twitching.  (FYI – Myers-Briggs doesn’t understand the blog thing either.  I explained I was writing it for my lone audience member, my step-mother Charla and it stopped judging me (it’s a Sensor). Please don’t rat me out to Myers-Briggs.)

My problem with 198 is that I forget about them.  To me that number is just some imaginary number (but not like a mathematical imaginary number although by virtue of being a number it is related to math – more like an imaginary number that unicorns frolic around, if unicorns weren’t real, which they are, but you get the idea).  When I post, it’s not like a sea of heads pop-up and magically 198 “Likes” appear.  (Again, I don’t get this part because I do say some pretty amazing things. Why just the other day I “shared” a picture George Takei posted and then I commented with something brilliant like “yeah” and “lol”. Deep stuff. I know, right? Ok, complete aside – I don’t LOL.  Here’s a video that kind of sums up my thoughts on “LOL”:

Think of it as a break from my writing.)

See, when I forget about those extra folks (which also happens on my blog occasionally), I whine or rant or otherwise say things that might be ok for my true audience of 4, but kind of makes me look like a crazy person to the remaining 194.  See, I have it on the best authority that you don’t want to be “that” person, which I hear is pretty bad.  It’s also not so great when you want to call out a specific person, but end up calling out 197 other people.  That makes you seem like an attention-seeking, tantrum-throwing jerk.  Granted, 190 of those people don’t actually follow my feed, but you never know when a Facebook setting will suddenly change and there you are letting your “I’m a gigantic baby” flag fly.

That being said (and what got me thinking about writing this post) is that I’m just going to post all of those Facebook status updates I’ve been holding back without context just to get them off my chest. Since Charla is my lone reader, it’s ok.

“Is that a picture of your feet? Again? Is this like when you steal someone’s yard gnome and take it around the world? Did someone lop off your feet?  Do you need help?”

“Yay! More offensive posts! It must be national election time again.  Those four years flew by fast!”

“I enjoy ‘Liking’ your stuff in support of you.  It’s ok.  You go ahead and ignore mine.  I was actually put on this earth as your personal cheerleader; that’s what they explained to all of us at the special school where we took a daily pledge to your face.  Truth is, there’s an ancient Tibetan prophesy about you and me.  I think you’re going to ‘Like’ how it ends.”

“LRN2SNOPES”

“You guessed it! I do actually ask you questions because the fun for me is in the asking.”

Ahhh… now that was cathartic.  Wouldn’t you say, Charla? Wait, there are more of you reading?  Umm… this is awkward.

(Note: Charla is probably wondering why she’s being singled out.  She’s family. It’s what we do to each other.)