The Beginning of The End of Facebook

So... facebook.

I've been on facebook for almost one year. I joined up last September-ish when a friend told me it was the better way of keeping in touch. She was right. I do keep up with a lot of people I wouldn't necessarily talk to if they weren't on facebook; people who I do want to keep in touch with, people that I do want to hear from, and people that I don't necessarily think to pick up the phone and call.

Instead of calling, we keep in touch peripherally by engaging in trades of - admittedly - egocentric status updates that inform any "friends" of what we find relavant to report on.

And, I will say, I have hidden some people - who will remain nameless - because, honestly, I just don't give a shit what you are doing and when, but I had to accept your request for friendship because that's just the kind of girl I am. (You know, the kind who is easily pressured and extremely non-confrontational.)

I'm also the kind of girl that leaves people in what I like to refer to as "facebook purgatory." It's that transitional place where a person who has requested my friendship waits for me to "approve" or "ignore" their friendship. They request, and then... They just... wait.

My mother, not yet on facebook, finds it's concept truly horrifying. "Why would I want everyone knowing what I'm doing all the time?" she asks. "I don't know, Ma." I tell her.

She calls to tell me she received another email invitation from "facemail" and she is getting really irritated. "Don't these people have lives?" she asks, "Who cares what I'm doing?" "I don't know, Ma." I say passively.

And, really, I don't know.

As far as I see it, facebook is for people who have difficulty staying in touch, not people in relationships, which require communication, who are just too lazy to follow through.