Do I Know You?

i swore up and down that this would never happen. i swore it from the first day i logged on. i would never become one of them. but you know what? i have. as much as it pains me to admit it, i have become a constant facebook checker. i do it first thing in the morning. i do it on my phone at the office. i do it as soon as i get home. i do it at least twice more after dinner and again right before i go to bed. why? i've realized that the more information that is out there, the more i want to see it. i don't really care that this person found a lonely cow on the farm and has adopted it, or that that person is going out tonight. it's just something to do. it's like eating when i'm bored.

it kind of hit me the other night when i was signing in for the billionth time. i don't do anything on facebook. i just see what everyone else is doing. i update my status a couple times a week, if that, but not much else. i don't comment on things, or write on people's walls, or send messages, but somehow i can't imagine my life without it. without that constant voyeurism.

i started this week with 241 facebook friends. i was amazed when i saw that number because i didn't think that i knew that many people. Well as it turns out, i don't. i had facebook friends that i haven't talked to since highschool, and most of them were people that i didn't even talk to while i was in highschool. so i decided it was time for some drastic action. after polling several of my friends via text to find out if someone that you un-friend is notified or if it's a secret (i don't know what i was worried about, hurting their feelings? i'm not even friends with these people in real life!) i went on an un-friending frenzy and managed to pare my number down from 241 to what i think is a very modest and respectable 188. i was shocked to find out how hard that was. you might be surprised to hear that it was difficult to sever the connection between myself and 53 virtual strangers, but i was agonizing over who to cut. would i regret losing the news feeds from this person or that person? would i feel bereft not knowing what is going on in their lives every second? finally i just decided to grow a pair and do it. and you know what? it didn't hurt at all. i feel better. lighter. granted, i still have way to many people on there that i don't talk to, but hey, i like to spy. (don't judge me, you do it too.)

so score one for holding beelzebub at the stave's end...i might try to go for round two in another couple of months. we'll see how brave i'm feeling.