At least once a day, I get a personal email from some total stranger.
“A Distant Acquaintance has changed their profile picture,” it says. “Like, Comment, Share?” Usually, I want to do None Of The Above, but there isn’t a button for that.
Sometimes, it’s “Classmate-You-Can’t-Remember has updated their status.”
From what, to what, I wonder? Friend to Un-Friend? Living to dead? Can you do that from the afterlife? Or maybe it’s a change from Dead to UnDead? (On AfterFacebook, I presume.)
Sometimes it’s A-Person-You-Can-Barely-Remember sharing Person-You-Never-Heard-of’s post.
Often, someone has “Added A New Photo to the album Mobile Uploads.” The cacophony of updates and posts and pictures is dizzying:
“Dorian Gray Has Changed His Cover Photo” — now it looks even older than ever.
“Snow White, your Evil Step-Mother sent you an E-vite: Come, take a bite of this lovely apple!”
“Sleeping Beauty has changed her status, from Sleeping to Still Sleeping.” This Post has Likes from 27 people, including Prince Charming who says “LOL! I’m On My Way.”
And you never know when your day might start with a blizzard of notifications: “Twenty five of your friends have Birthdays today.” It even tells you what to do about it: “Wish So-And-So a Happy Birthday”.
This always reminds me of when my mom used to tell me about an upcoming birthday for some cousin I had never heard of. “They’d love to hear from you,” she would “hint.”
“Yes, Mom.” No point explaining how I’ve never heard of them, they’ve probably never heard of me, and how therefore the whole exercise would be pretty pointless.
There’s something else I don’t do on Facebook.
I don’t “Like” things, or “Share” them.
Frankly, I can’t believe how many corporations pull this trick. “Like us on Facebook,” they all say. Sure, I’d like nothing better than to do all their promotional work for them – and for free!
But I can’t. It’s hard enough keeping up with all the updates people send!
Sometimes they’re posting pictures from their glorious vacations – which are always to places you can’t afford:
“Random Person is cruising the Loire, pricing vineyards and works of art.”
“Erstwhile-Close-Friend and 15 “besties” having a blast in Disneyworld!” Hmmm…without me! (Maybe I should have opened that e-vite?)
Person-I-Used-To-Be-Friends-With posts a photo: “We’re at the airport, on our way to 3 glorious weeks in Tahiti!” Am I the only one reading that who wonders if she still keeps her house key under the mat?
In short, Random People are all having a better life than you.
Of course, sometimes people send links to amusing websites that will tell you your future, or your personality, or what ‘70s sitcom character you would have been, if you play their game and expose your computer to untold numbers of viruses.
Wow, I’m the color “orange” and I would have been Peggy Lipton from the Mod Squad, and I could go on and on and on, and five hours later I would come up for air and where was I? Oh yes, I’m still writing this column, or I would be except a virus has crashed my computer.
And I admit that sometimes it’s nice to keep in touch with old friends or classmates whom you are happy to remember. But all too soon, it gets back to bragging again.
It’s like wandering an entire universe composed of nothing but those Christmas newsletters people used to send out. It’s a wonderful world, all of the time. No one ever gets sick , or laid off, or has a child who scores in the bottom 10th percentile of anything.
Nobody ever posts “Struggling to lose 50 pounds, gained them instead,” or “Glad Jon Stewart’s off the air, now I hardly ever wet the couch laughing too hard.”
Nobody says “We’re so happy that X’s sentence was reduced and he’ll be out in 6 months if he can find an apartment 500 feet from any school.”
No, they’re always celebrating weddings, or renewing vows, or having another beautiful grandchild (and trust me, the filter hasn’t been made that can make newborns look to the rest of the world the way they look to you. Just sayin’.)
It’s like reading the class notes in my alumni magazine… which I quit reading a long time ago. But not even those ever woke me up with the order to “Wish these 25 people Happy Birthday today!”
Of course, as soon as they’ve read this column, all my friends will get busy UnFriending me.
Just one thing — before doing that – won’t you please LIKE me on Facebook?
