This past weekend I re-activated my de-activated Facebook to retrieve pictures of my dad. I decided to post a Facebook status with my number and blog url. I also decided to RE-de-activate on Monday, which I have done.
I had 10 friend requests and 30 notifications from different friends within 48 hours. Most from friends I already keep in contact with.
Someone please help me understand why I must keep my Facebook? I’m told it’s more convenient to keep in contact with friends. If friendships were all about convenience, we’d have so many friends. I’m sorry, I’m not your friend out of convenience for you.
I don’t keep in contact with friends because its convenient for me. I keep in contact with friends because I care. I think of certain friends every now and then and I send them a text, an email, or I leave a voicemail.
Friendship does not consist of likes, comments and wall posts. We build friendships on conversations, struggles, and laughter.
I realize distance hinders a lot of those things we build our friendships on but I, as an idealist would rather not ruin friendship for convenience. I am perfectly happy to wait for an email, text, or phone call rather than receive a wall post consisting of 8 words to sum up the past 6 months of your life.
What have I discovered through my Facebook ordeal? I have realized through my inability to disappear completely from Facebook, I am incapable of letting go those who need to be let go. What does that mean? I am the type of friend who cannot let you go until something drastic has been done to our relationship-lying, deceit, etc. If it is merely a lack of communication, I believe we are still friends. That belief is untrue.
For example my friend Christina. I had de-activated my Facebook in February. Unbeknownst to me, she had changed her number sometime after that. She found me by messaging my ex-bf for my number to let me know she was getting married and wanted to send me a wedding invitation.
There are ways of finding those you really want to get in contact with.
On the other-hand, I had texted a college friend “I will be de-activating my Facebook.” She then proceeded to ask, “Why?!” I told her, “Andre broke up with me and I need to get away from it” I never heard from her until I had sent a mass e-mail about my blog. Mind you, it was two months after I had text her about my breakup. I do not know how difficult it would have been for her to send me a text saying something like “Sorry, I don’t know how you feel, etc” This particular friend, a term I am using very loosely in this instance, was a friend in name but not in action. She would not care if I had Facebook or not. She would be categorized as one of those “friends” I need to let go of.
What am I doing? I will be going through Operation: Life Clean-Up.
I’m starting over but allowing people to find me, either through email, blog, or my no-picture Facebook.
I know you are thinking “FACEBOOK?! You just ranted about Facebook.” I make allowances for those friends who have made it a point to send message me on Facebook and I understand they never check their emails, have limited texting plans, and phone calls are out of the question because we’re on different time zones or a different continent altogether!
I will not add you if I already have your phone number, email, and blog url-it just doesn’t make sense to me. Albeit, my blog views jumped to 100+ each day I was on Facebook I’m not too crazy about trafficking to my blog if no one comments or communicates with me.
Again, I’m a difficult person to understand and I sympathize with you; I really do. I know you are probably thinking I want to boost my ego so I can find out how many people are searching for me, who want to keep in contact with me, who miss me, etc. I’m sorry to let you know that is untrue. I am perfectly happy to become a hermit and have my blog as my best friend. Ask Renae or Danny, they will agree with me.
The past to the present 