Tuesday, September 28, 2010

No More Facebook?

I was pondering a question the other day: What would happen if Facebook was wiped off the face of the earth? All it would take is for someone to flip a switch. Might be a good thing.

My 17-yr-old gave up Facebook this month. September is almost over, and she is thinking she might go Facebook-free in October. I mean, really what does she really NEED it for? It takes so much time out of her day because she has hundreds of FB friends to keep track of.

If and when Facebook is about to leave the net, I would like a bit of fair warning. I have connected with so many friends from the past. It is great to see the pictures of them and their families, finding out what they have been doing all these years, and having a phone number or e-mail address to contact them if needed. It has also been an important tool in helping me come out. I figured that if a person had a problem with me being gay, they would un-friend me, and so far, that has not happened.

It has also been a way for me to find out others in my past who were gay and I never knew. In my high school list alone I can think of probably six to eight right off the top of my head. I grieve about this in my head because just think: If we had all known that the others were gay, we could have had a club; we could have supported each other. Just think what we could have accomplished and how many mistakes could have been avoided if we had known we would have been accepted by our peers.

On the other hand, Facebook takes up a lot of my time, contains viruses, causes me hurt feelings when I am not included by my girls on something, constantly interrupted by my phone alerting me to a comment or post.

So while Facebook has been very good to me, I am considering following in my daughter's footsteps and taking a Facebook fast for the month of October. I'll let you know what I decide.

2 comments:

LL Cool Joe said...

I refuse to get into facebook at all, I think for me it would be quite damaging.

Good luck what ever you decide to do!

RiverPoet said...

Hey lady -

How are you doing with the FB fast? I'm going to have to do the old-fashioned thing and send you an email. So much has been going on in my life.

I applaud you for doing this. I waited for a very long time to get into FB, and I don't get into a lot of the games, like some people do. Just Lexilous. It really did some damage to my relationship with D, and there's no going back now.

As for those of us who found out about each other much later - damn skippy we would have all been happier people had we known and supported each other. I was terrified of anyone finding out how I felt. It feels really good to be me, though.

Peace - D