Facebook Fatigue

Holy. Crap.

Okay. Here is the post I wrote about what was bothering me. It's about Facebook. It's nothing. It's stupid. Read it and see:

Not too long ago I cut my FB friend list by about 25%. (Yes, I did the math. Yes, I am a dork.) I have always maintained a pretty small list as it is, but there were a few people I had not interacted with for over a year (at least) and several more who had never bothered to even say "hello". I didn't delete anyone as a result of any negative emotions or as a result of anything--I just pared the list down to the people with whom I interact. (Or relatives. I'll admit that I kept all the relatives, regardless of their activity level. How am I going to tell my grandmother I deleted her because she doesn't get on her account enough?!)

Anyway. There hasn't been a lot of drama on my account. I've talked before about how boring my friends are. (I love you guys, but you are--for which I am eternally grateful.) I've never had anyone attack me on a post, I've never had anyone send me a hateful e-mail, and I've never seen anyone post anything on their status about one of my posts either. (On my page; I have been or felt attacked on others' pages before, normally during a political discussion gone wrong.) It's a nice, safe place for me to be. I thought I had kept it that way because I am so discerning about who makes the friends list but this past week I learned a few nuts had slipped through the approval process. (That'll teach me to not pat myself on the back too much!)

In case you haven't picked up on it here at the ol' blog, I have a rather quirky sense of humor. In fact, this whole family is like that. We joke about things that sometimes raise some eyebrows, but it's just our way. So yes, last week I made a joke about paying someone in children if they would come clean my kitchen. It's probably not the most shocking thing I've ever said, honestly. It never occurred to me that it would upset someone. Does anyone actually think I would do it?! Who takes something like that seriously?! Well, I now know of at least one person who had an extremely negative reaction to this and I am honestly stunned.

People. I would not trade my kids away for a clean kitchen. Maybe a clean house and garage. Selling them for only a clean kitchen is just too cheap. They are great damn kids.

Ahem.

Once again I find myself in the midst of "Facebook Fatigue" and I have to wonder if it's worth keeping up with the stupid thing. There are days when I think I would like nothing more than to just delete the whole damn thing and call it good but for one thing: it is the primary communication tool that I have with many of my relatives and several of my oldest friends. FB is such a freakin' staple in people's lives now that I doubt I would hear from many of them (often) if I am not on there. I'm starting to regret having ever opened up the account to begin with.

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There is the big secret post in all its glory. See? It's dumb, just like I said. A lot of hoopla over nothing. The person who got upset has already been deleted and blocked. (My first block! How exciting, right?!) It's not a big deal and, I promise, it has NOTHING to do with any of you reading this. (Unless you are that one person, but I'm pretty sure she isn't one who reads this thing. If I'm wrong, well, you still suck and I continue to roll my eyes in your general direction.) In the future, I will try to refrain from posting about ambiguous frustrations. I'm sorry that I upset those who e-mailed me; I'm publishing this just in case there were more who didn't contact me.

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Question time! Might as well since I went and published the damn thing anyway. Now, I know that people use their personal FB accounts in all sorts of ways. I'm honestly curious...who makes the cut on your friends list? Do you "friend" everyone clear down to your sister's hairdresser's oldest daughter or do you just add your nearest and dearest? Do you hide your feed from people or is everything an open book? Do you hide people or delete them? Or both? And finally, do you ever think about deleting your account? I can't be the only one. Right?