Despite recent privacy concerns, I still have a Facebook account. There are millions of us who either don't post personal information or don't care who sees it. I don't know which is me, since I've not looked at my profile in months. Except for a few weeks ago, when I removed my phone number from it.
Last night, I sat on my news feed waiting for a friend to pop up in my chat list. She never showed, so I left a note on her wall. She responded instantly. Which I'm fairly sure means she was on Facebook but chose to remain invisible to potential chatters. I didn't know this was an option. It feels exclusionary.
While waiting for my invisible friend, I looked at the suggestions box. I usually ignore these. I'm uncomfortable reconnecting with those I've been ignoring, and I don't need any new friends. Out of boredom or perhaps a residual feeling of adventurousness after having just completed a Dungeons & Dragons session, I followed these suggestions anyway. Via status update, I joked about doing this for a year and writing one of those young, white, urban professional NPR listener memoirs about it. Instead, I've started this log.
I don't remember all the suggestions I followed, but one was to "share the latest news" with a Facebook friend to whom I hadn't spoken since we abruptly stopped sleeping together a few years ago under embarrassing circumstances. I won't detail them here, but the circumstances are still embarrassing. I wrote a thing on her wall, though. She hasn't responded.
Facebook also suggested I friend a stranger whose name sounded African. Muttumbe or something like that. His profile picture was of a potted plant. We had a friend in common, though I didn't know that man either. Some older gentleman with a white van dyke beard. I friended the African. He hasn't confirmed.
I also left a note on the wall of my friend Bob's daughter, who's now on her second marriage. I haven't seen her since her first wedding, which was held in a Pentecostal church with a portrait of George W. Bush framed on the wall. Afterward, I called the church's answering machine and told them I would report them to the IRS for politicizing from the pulpit, a violation of the terms of their tax-exempt status. I never followed through, because I'm lazy. She hasn't replied to my post.
This evening, Facebook suggested I friend a stranger who also happened to be an African American child. We had no mutual friends, and it seemed a bit creepy to ask him to be mine. I know I'm not a pedophile, but that doesn't count for much in the universe at large. So I ignored the suggestion.
I've already failed my experiment.
The future looks bleak.
Last night, I sat on my news feed waiting for a friend to pop up in my chat list. She never showed, so I left a note on her wall. She responded instantly. Which I'm fairly sure means she was on Facebook but chose to remain invisible to potential chatters. I didn't know this was an option. It feels exclusionary.
While waiting for my invisible friend, I looked at the suggestions box. I usually ignore these. I'm uncomfortable reconnecting with those I've been ignoring, and I don't need any new friends. Out of boredom or perhaps a residual feeling of adventurousness after having just completed a Dungeons & Dragons session, I followed these suggestions anyway. Via status update, I joked about doing this for a year and writing one of those young, white, urban professional NPR listener memoirs about it. Instead, I've started this log.
I don't remember all the suggestions I followed, but one was to "share the latest news" with a Facebook friend to whom I hadn't spoken since we abruptly stopped sleeping together a few years ago under embarrassing circumstances. I won't detail them here, but the circumstances are still embarrassing. I wrote a thing on her wall, though. She hasn't responded.
Facebook also suggested I friend a stranger whose name sounded African. Muttumbe or something like that. His profile picture was of a potted plant. We had a friend in common, though I didn't know that man either. Some older gentleman with a white van dyke beard. I friended the African. He hasn't confirmed.
I also left a note on the wall of my friend Bob's daughter, who's now on her second marriage. I haven't seen her since her first wedding, which was held in a Pentecostal church with a portrait of George W. Bush framed on the wall. Afterward, I called the church's answering machine and told them I would report them to the IRS for politicizing from the pulpit, a violation of the terms of their tax-exempt status. I never followed through, because I'm lazy. She hasn't replied to my post.
This evening, Facebook suggested I friend a stranger who also happened to be an African American child. We had no mutual friends, and it seemed a bit creepy to ask him to be mine. I know I'm not a pedophile, but that doesn't count for much in the universe at large. So I ignored the suggestion.
I've already failed my experiment.
The future looks bleak.
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