Quick Cave

Less than 24 hours into my self-proclaimed Facebook break and I'm starting to cave. Big shock.

I've been on FB for 11 years now. I still remember my skepticism when I joined: why, exactly, do I want to attend a virtual high school almost twenty years after I left the real one behind? I had three people, each from different eras in my life, approach me within a week and ask me why the hell I wasn't on Facebook.
Peer pressure never worked on me in my teenage years. Then again, in my teenage years, there wasn't an internet.

I am convinced that most people have a chink in their armour, something to which they would be completely addicted if only they were exposed to it. There are likewise people who seem to be immune to some particular addictive substance -- there's that friend of a friend who only smokes in bars, there are a whole lot of strictly social drinkers, and there are people who post to Facebook once every three months, or who don't even have Facebook accounts.

(How do those last people do it?)

(However you did it for the first three years, Ken)

Okay, I never posted as infrequently as every three months, but it's true that when I first started out, I could and did routinely go days without feeling the need to update people on my life--or share that stupid pun going around. Gradually, over time, I got sucked in...there are so many funny memes, so many interesting articles to read and share, and above all so many people....

I'm not one of those folks with 500+ friends. I have about 130, and I would recognize most of them on the street; the ones I wouldn't, with a very few exceptions, I am nevertheless reasonably close to. I like to see what's going on in their worlds, too, and Messenger allows me to....well, not talk, nobody talks anymore, but...type back and forth and at least pretend I'm connecting.

We all curate our timelines, of course. Authenticity has always been a core value of mine, so I wouldn't say anything on my timeline is fake, exactly.  But I do go for the jokes more than usual when I'm hurting. And right now....

Life is a little rough right now. I'm not saying this for sympathy: it's just a fact. The job search has proven more challenging than I'd anticipated. And there remains the other thing, the thing I should have healed from by now but have not, the thing I have no wish to burden anyone with  because what can be said? Nothing helpful, that's for sure. It's only a heart, they break, they heal in a month flat, no big whoop.

So to recap: what I'm sharing does not reflect my state of mind; I'd lose friends if I shared what did; it's best I just stay away for a while.

It's hard, though. It's hard because everybody's there. I feel as if I have voluntarily put myself in a sensory deprivation tank and completely isolated myself. Which is maybe not the best thing to be doing when I already feel so isolated.

And then there are all the things online that are linked to Facebook.

Yeah. I think I have the discipline not to post pointless memes, or anything else for a while, but...I need to be where the people are. And if I can't manage that...I at least need to be where the pixels are.