I used The Facebook for a few months in 2008, but I left last June.
Look, I had plenty of The Facebook friends, and plenty of coworker friends, but there were still very few real-life friends. Now, I like my coworkers, but I don't need The Facebook to be in touch with them; them I saw all the time. And I found this need to collect The Facebook Friends like some people used to collect Pogs Milk Caps. The Facebook was overhwelming.
And I left. I wrote about it on this blog, and the response surprised me. Not that there was a lot of it, I just expected something different - a little bit of conversation about time spent on The Facebook, the value of in-person contact versus living in small dialogue boxes, et ceterea. But mostly people were confused, as some occasionally are by things I write. Some took to mocking me, and one woman went so far as to summarize her opinion by repeatedly calling me a faggot to my face, a rare case where I would have much preferred the online version of the conversation.
For these last six months I had the distinct feeling of not missing out. Last month learned that many of my friends (the real ones, the ones I wanted to spend weekend time with) had joined The Facebook in the intervening time. All of a sudden there was this real value to returning to The Facebook, and so I have.
I like friends, and I even like coworker friends. Let's be friends! But this time I'm not collecting them for points, and let's keep out the surveys, snowballs and super pokes. I like The Facebook when I use it as a relationship supplement; not its replacement.
I must no longer be gay; my wife will be so relieved.
4 comments:
There are a few Robert Konigsbergses on Facebook; I'm not sure which one is you. Are you the photo-less Robert Konigsberg with no friends? Or are you one of the two photo-less Robert Konigsbergseseses with no friends that I recognize?
I'm guessing that you're the photo-less Robert Konigsberg with no friends, that you're on a fresh account and you just haven't gotten around to accepting any friend requests. But what if I'm wrong? What if I offer to befriend this guy and he's not you? What if he's some other Rob Konigsberg, friendless for some darned good reason? What if he's a loser? I can NOT risk being Facebook friends with some loser.
Then perhaps we should not be friends.
More seriously, probably none of those. My profile only appears in search results of friends, or friends of friends; I forget. I suspect the still small number of edges in my profile means we don't yet have a common friend.
Oh my goodness, the REAL Rob Konigsberg is back. After finding out the fake steve jobs was really fake, I need a dose of reality. Since we're real friends, can we be facebook friends, too?
Jeremy, we're fake real friends. Like fake steve jobs. You're my best fake friend ever.
Which Jeremy is this?
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