Facebook

I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook. On the one hand, I love it because I have been blessed to have traveled around the world and have many friends and family who reside across said globe. Facebook allows me to have glimpses into their lives and at times when years have gone by and the phone rings, to answer and pick up the relationship/familiarity right where we left off last time we saw each other (Netta).

I like the ability to post to mass audiences to assist one another, be it to place an animal in a new home, applaud literary accomplishments of friends or even to ask advice on school districts or Nikon vs Canon (Nikon for the record) etc.

There is also the fact that many of my lifelong or at least long term friends have decided to have a mass exodus from this lovely State of Michigan and with gas/airfare being as pricey as it is again, it allows for already strong friendships to remain strong.

My daughter now has a doubled family due to divorce. I like that if she asks to see a picture of her cousin Lily and I ask which one and she responds with "Both please" that I am able to oblige.

I have long appreciated the value of Facebook in my life but lately, it has become burdensome.

The hate aspects of Facebook largely started with this being an election year. I do not care which side you are on, according to Facebook from many of your posts you are either uneducated and struggle with your morals or ... oh wait... judging from many of your posts this appears to be both Democrat and Republican voters.

Lately I have had a HUGE number of friends getting upset with me on my lack of response to messages in my inbox. I am on a computer most of the day, however not on Facebook. I have a smartphone which I use to see random updates if I'm getting an oil change or fighting insomnia, but I don't use it much for email or messages. Texting? Yes, it is short and to the point. But if I am going to carry on a conversation that is not over the phone, it is going to be via email.

If you know me, then you know this. Which leads me to wondering if my "friends" really know me. I am really blessed. I have a great family. I have great friends who have become family. I am about to marry into a wonderful family. I love my job, I believe I am good at what I do, but am always striving to be better. I love to bitch about working out and love to indulge in life requiring me to work out.

I'm really optimistic with a snarky sense of humor. I am genuine and pride myself on doing what I say and if I'm going to vent about you to someone, then I pick up my bootstraps and say it to your face.

I'm annoyed that I'm feeling the need to blog about who I am because lately some of the comments I have gotten about status updates which were jokes, or comments I've made on other people's pages which were sincere are starting to make me wonder, do the people who consider me a "friend" really know me? If they don't know me, why did they "friend" me?

I have a large number of friends on here but anyone who "knows" me knows I talk to anything that moves, people, squirrels, floating grocery bag in the breeze...

This leads me to trying to figure out, do I lock down my Facebook, do I "clean" out my friends, but then what happens?

Obviously this will end up insulting some people, and ironically the people who wouldn't be offended if I did unfriend them even though there is no reason why I would, those people would not be upset. Partly because they are assholes, (Timmy Bob), and partly because I'm friends with them because everyone needs a brilliant asshole or two in the lives (Jeter) because these friends are honest, real and provide a strange breath of fresh air.

There are 168 hours in a week.
Typically I spend mine:
Commute: 6 hours
Work: 40
Ava Homework/Reading: 5
Workout: 5
TV Shows/Not multi-tasking: 4
Sleeping/Trying to Sleep: 56
Groceries: 2
Hygiene/mine/Ava: 10
Meal Prep: 7

At this point this leaves 33 hours with about 24 of this being devoted to adventures with Ava on the weekends which leaves about 9 hours unaccounted for to do laundry, see friends, check email, respond to phone calls, get gas, clean, etc.

So what to do? I'm fortunate that so many of my friends have children around the same age allowing me to be in mommy-mode and friend-mode simultaneously, but what to do about people who I thought knew me well enough for me to accept their friend invite via Facebook, but who clearly from comments, side conversations and direct confrontations about my limitations to responding to messages are not necessarily people who should indeed be considered "friends."

Really in the grand scheme of things this really isn't an issue. And if I were to ask my brilliant, honest asshole friends, they would say "unfriend them."

So I guess this is a prelude to cleaning house.
As much as I like to joke that I'm a therapist who hates people, I don't. I enjoy the connections we've developed over the years, the people in my life as much as the events in my life have shaped me into who I am now. Life is simple. Truly. When it's not, something generally is not what it seems or we do not like our options. I like simple. I trust if you have friend-ed me or if I friend-ed you it was because on some level I believe we are friends. If I continue to observe that our perceptions of each other are mismatched or mistaken, then the decision to un-friend will also be simple.

Live each day vowing to make the lives around you brighter and yours too will shine.