So - the facebook detoxing has not been as complete as I may have liked. After agreeing to cohost a regular milonga and be included as a nominal member of the "faculty" in the loosely formed Tango Popolare (this is mostly my previous teaching partner and his handful of regular lessons and other teaching partners around NW Washington), I offered to maintain a facebook fan page in the hopes of getting the larger Bellingham community more involved:
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| Yeah, I stole that from here, but it's out user pic because I like it. |
It seems to me that although the community can have redundancies, there are distinct Bellingham barrios developing. Perhaps this is an inevitable and even good thing, but since this leads to scheduling conflicts and many missed connections with my favorite dancers who may have fractionalized slightly differently than other favorite dancers... well for selfish reasons, I'd like to at least encourage *my* favorite dancers to be at events I know I'll be attending because I've agreed to teach/dj/etc. Anyways, this has been a muddied experience to say the least. In hindsight, I probably should have created a "group" which allows you to add anyone without prior notification or consent... annoying when I have been added, but if this doesn't pan out after a month, I may have to switch before giving up altogether.
Creating a page is fairly simple, but getting people to "like" (and thus receive updates in their feed) it has proven to be more trouble than it's likely worth. I seem to recall a time where you would get an "invite" to "like" (er, actually I guess "fan" a page - I assume the same syntax applied) a page that showed up in notifications and was fairly easy to find, identify and act upon.. The co-teacher, whom I added as an admin on the page, managed to confuse himself into adding about thirty more friends to his personal profile while attempting to invite people to "like" the page. I also attempted to simply post the page from my profile and asked people to "like" it, which inevitably led to more people liking the post where I ask people to "like" the page than actually "liking" the page, despite my added comment that this would not be effective. So... 8 friends and one of the admins doesn't even "like" the page.
Can I just say that by now I miss the days where painfully redundant use of the word "like" was confined to Valley Girl speak and that delightfully dippy intonations accompanying such patter. Give me the days of Clueless over stupid cluttered FB verboddities (yes, as previously established, I can and shall create new words whenever I so choose).
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| So, like, I'm suppose, like like some like page or something As if! I like totally don't DO computers except to coordinate my wardrobe. |
1. Obsessive Schadenfreudes over sundry stupidities, and morbid fascinations with that love-to-hate urge. I have a few "friends" whose status updates I've watched largely for the opportunity to snicker and tsk in absentee condescension. There's a morbid fascination with some people's trainwrecks of a life and facebook can provide our own personalized Jersey Shore or Starz Magazine. Of particular fascination are the stupid on-again-off-again relationships that were obviously doomed from the begining and bear watching for the inevitable blow ups and subsequent blissful reunions; the insane narcissists who seem unaware of just how conceited and deluded their self-serving posts read and thus make great fodder for reading aloud; the passive-aggressive "you know who you are" types who make equally great fodder and tip one off to all kinds of interesting gossip; the exes for whom I technically bear no ill will (usually even think well enough of to maintain the occasional "how's it going?" contact), and yet get a little surge of fascinated cruelty in following their subsequent romantic endeavors, which I guess is a sort of see it wasn't me, it was YOU! kind of thing.
2. The mindless reload loop. So you're on facebook and *nothing* is happening, but you know if you leave, *something* will happen. So you feel like you have to stay on there, whether you do so actively or just have it up in the background and "occasionally" refresh on the theory that maybe the automatic refresh isn't working as effectively as it should be. And you enter this incredible state of watchfulness as you wait for whatever "something" there may be to happen. Because it's so easy, this leads into rescanning your feed, looking up friends you haven't seen much from in a while (good way to stumble on delightful news like maybe you've been blocked, etc., but usually just kind of a boring confirmation that you haven't heard much because they haven't done much and/or maybe they commented on somebody else's page and it was kind of boring, but hey why didn't they comment on your page??), going back, clicking reload, switching feed options to change the order... and suddenly that sixty minutes of free time you could have spent reading a book, writing an email or taking a walk is gone.
3. The petty jealousies. Ok, in admitting these roil a bit in my head from time to time I am not admitting that I give great heed to them, but there is a little voice in the back of my head who disturbs my inner-elevator music with its spiteful reactions to things that fall into the ignorance is bliss category. For instance, facebook may tell me my bestest friends are going to an event with some acquaintances or see that they've had a long love-fest in comments on their wall with another person... While in ordinary circumstances I understand that friends actually have other friends and are allowed to have other friends, it can a similar sort of thing as recognizing that my significant others will and do find other people attractive and probably have some feelings for others overriden by their better instincts. As neither truths likely impact me from a practical standpoint and do send my mind places I'd rather avoid, I don't need to know about it. Facebook begs to differ.
4. Similar to 3, facebook as a relationship metric. Sometimes - and again we speak of small twinges - there is a little something in seeing the more effusive facebook behavior of another friend's significant other that causes me to pause in considering my own. Or maybe, I start comparing how often and in what way I refer to my significant other to how often and in what way he refers to me. I don't suggest doing this, but I dare you to try not to. Don't get me started on the leery tussle of "relationship status" that occurs at the begining of a relationship.
5. Lest we forget, the birthday pettiness. Why some people post on my wall to wish me happy birthday and others do not is a complete mystery. Some of my very close friends ignore it and some people I've barely seen post extremely detailed and personalized comments on my wall. I generally have appreciated the ritual for reminding me of dormant relationships and how much I appreciate people who aren't as active in my life now, but I also can't avoid at least some calculating about who said what and who did not say anything.
6. Notification addiction. I'm usually an introvert, but I also enjoy affirmation and - as an introvert - I tend to take any sign of rejection including being ignored far more harshly than extroverts. So there is always a hook to posting comments/events/etc. and a deep hope that people will respond and recognize just waiting to be dashed. This feeds desperately into the mindless reload loop. Also, every time somebody comments or likes a post, it makes me feel like I've "accomplished" something, and this feeling can substitute for actual accomplishments. And since this is a tiny bite of a post, it usually is not the same kind of "I made you think or laugh" accomplishment of anything of substance.
7. Oh and the privacy issue. I'm very protective of my time and space. I am - as previously harped upon - an introvert, so having the ability to vanish for a while is a good thing. Sometimes this means that I need a friend to not hear back from me for a brief period of time while I'm mulling on something or otherwise to protect myself and my schedule with a brief wall of vagueness. Not that one can't control for these things, but with passive sharing and a little forgetfulness, frequently friends know what I'm up to when I wish they didn't or that I'm currently on the computer when I'd just as soon they didn't. It goes without saying that I've turned off chat. I can't tell you how much the uninvited conversations stressed me out (introvert with a sense of social obligation to respond to people requesting communication needs mental preparation!)
8. And of course the unfriending issue. I may have mentioned this before, but I feel like in the past, relationships took work to continue as such, or it would simply fade away.. There are friend breakups in the real world, I know, but ordinarily the less cataclysmic end has been that gradual drift. With unfriending, you can stay "friends" far longer than you otherwise would have if it required effort, but ending takes an affirmative act...And since facebook has the mentality of a highschool mean-girl (maybe there is a reason that it's so enamored of the word "like" after all!), you will stumble upon a number of old "friends" whom you have unfriended or who have unfriended you in the "people you may know" area. In fact, it will even suggest your exes, despite knowing that you were in a relationship on facebook and broke up on facebook and maybe said a lot of nasty and indiscreet things that ended you up on lame book together. That just seems cruel.
9. On the flipside, it means hanging onto people longer and this can interfere with letting go. I have a few of what I term "ghost friends" on facebook. These are people whose posts are hidden from my feed and who are blocked in my privacy settings from seeing mine. This arrangement is most common when I'm recovering from a break up as a way of getting the space I need, but allowing a seamless reintegration of the person into my acquaintanceship when sufficient time has passed. I generally think that's pretty ok, since again I tend to like most of my exes and don't mind the semi-annual "how's it goin?" kind of message. That said, I also have had some others in the ghost status largely because the relationship itself remains in limbo. Ordinarily, the fade away process would be sad, but mend over time. This way, occasionally the ghost re-emerges through facebook flubs or just going through the friends list and never has the same resolved feeling that past friends might have or the urgency to take action to end the limbo either way.
10. The political/religious/etc. vitriol. I have friends on both sides of the aisle of many issues who equally bother me by presenting their views in as confrontational and snyde a manner as possible. I don't care what you believe on the issues, but the belief that it is alright to imply in a public forum that any one who disagrees with you is (1) an idiot (2) a jerk
Anyways, that's just an impromptu list. There's probably more.
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