I am being facetious…sort of.
When I first joined FB, I truly was trying to check up on my teenagers (one in particular,….uh uhmmm….Ben….uh uhmmmm). Then I did my first search…nope, not on FB. Wait, I went to school with this gal,…and this guy. Hey, grown-ups are on FB! Ok, we all must be spying on our kids. Can’t hurt to say hello.
Oh wow, a ‘friend request’…hmmm….ok. Hey there, omg, can you believe it has been 25 years since we last saw each other?? Wow, love your pics! You look just like you did in high school! Remember when we used to….and whatever happened to ….? She’s on FB, too?? COOL!! Friend,….Friend…..Accept Friend Request…………………….and the cycle begins.
Wait, I don’t know you…do I? Um, let me get out my yearbook. Wow, um, …ok….Accept Friend Request. You wanna do WHAT to my WHAT? Now how do I delete this person???? Omg,…Ok, cool. I think I have the hang of this thing. Send chickens for your barn? HUH? You need wood to build your stable for your horses? Ahh,…block Farmville apps. Got it! Nowwww, I’m a PRO!
Wow, you have 1249 FRIENDS! Goodness….reminds me of the popularity issues in school. The pretty girls get all the friends and everyone loves their posts. The jocks get all the friends and everyone tries to tag onto them like puppy dogs. Jealousy is the same as it was 30 years ago. And us band geeks,…well, ….we geek on. But it’s all good. Heck, I’m in my 40’s. I need all the friends I can get, right?? I’m cruisin along.
“Repent and turn from your sinful ways or burn in HELL!” WHAT?!?!?! Did she just say what I thought she said?? Um, WTF are you doing on FB?? Vote for **** ! Stop cruelty to slugs and bugs! The rhetoric continues,…. “Stop illegal immigrants—support national police racial profiling, says the Confederate Party member-friend of a “friend” …sigh…..UNFRIEND.
Let folks be folks and just be me. Yeah, that’s it. Read the funny ones and inspiring ones, look at people’s pictures, and stay quiet. And then…reality finally started truly to set in. FB-FRIEND does not necessarily equal FRIEND. Heck, it doesn’t even necessarily equal FAMILY. My daddy was gone, the sudden painful loss of my father…Belinda, can you believe some of our own (relatives to be left unnamed) did not send a card, make a call, or have the gall to post a simple FB condolence?? Aw, hecks no…. ….Wow, ain’t that a blip! UNFRIEND.
This illustration is sad, funny, silly, but mostly true—truncated, but true. Caught up in believing that we have to accept every friend request (don’t wanna hurt anyone’s feelings) and that we must not be as cool because no one responds to our posts, that we are driven daily by how much FB play we got. Wow,….wow…
So,…time to take a step back and analyze what the heck is going on. First off, people are hurting. People yearn for connection. People are frustrated. And doggone it, some people are…let’s just say….mentally and emotionally challenged. My heart connects with every one of them. That’s right, I said it….every one of them--------to a degree. But there has come the time to say to myself, “Self, …you are NOT worth the number of FB likes you get today. You are not going to wither away if you do not stay friends with people that do not even wish you the obligatory FB “Happy Birthday” (or appreciate yours). Some people that were my best friends in high school or elementary school have evolved (or not evolved) and we just don’t click anymore. And, THAT IS OKAY!
So here is my FB revelation. A post represents a human being’s attempt to connect with others—their friends and/or subscribers (sigh), and everyone has their own reasons for being online. Not every thought or post connects…and that’s okay. Not everyone is online every day or every week. And that is okay. I do not have 1429 friends…and that’s okay. Some of us have hit that mid-life crisis point and reach out for validity and proof that we are still relevant. People share what means something to them. People get angry and want to vent. People want to prosthelytize,…and Praise God for it! I admire the stories of survival. I applaud the accolades of our children and our dogs/cats/horses and fish; and heck, ourselves. I love the shares. I mourn with those in pain. I enjoy the music. I get a kick out of the wit and humor (My Sons, Doug-E, Mikey V, and Donovan B, you are some of the coolest, funniest cats out there!). I show off my family and how proud I am of my children. I ask for and offer prayers. I seek to inspire, be inspired; enlighten and be enlightened. It’s a tough world out there. Soooo, if my friends list gets smaller, I do not take it as a defeat. I accept it as change. We grow, we move on,….There are some truly painful things going on in our world. I aspire to help lessen the pains. There are some really COOL things in our world. I aspire to find and explore each and every one of them. We only get one life, that we know of,...and I aim to make mine the best one I possibly can.
I only hope that the time I am YOUR FB friend that I have touched you—in a good way—no differently than from when I was 5 and 13 and 30,…and that when you think of me, or of something I said that one time, that it makes you smile. Know that if you are my “friend”…I appreciate you, your families, and the time we have “connected”. I will still raz the football foes (all in fun). I will still post random (what the heck is she talking about) posts. But most of all, I will take my 17 FB friends on my epitaph as a testament that somebody “gets” me…and gosh darn it, (some) people like me!
