I Hate Facebook

I hate Facebook.  Well, I don't hate it; I just despise it immensely. Social networking sites and people like me don't mix well.  I'm not very social, and I don't have that many friends in real life.  But in my fake Facebook life,  I have seventy-seven.  I don't know most of them, though. Apparently, I went to kindergarten with sixty of them.  Some I met at Big Lots, Seven-Elevens, in elevators, doctors' offices and at stop lights.  All but one person on my friends' list approached me.  Some were wearing signs that read, "Will work for Facebook friends."

I don't know why I joined Facebook in the first place, but once I crossed the line and got a taste of voyeurism, I was hooked.  I now have 24/7 unlimited access to my loved ones' personal information that I would have otherwise had to discover through the rumor mill.

"Facebook can be detrimental to mental health." I saw that on Google, but I already knew it.  My mental health has suffered since joining Facebook. When I see everyone having so much fun without me, I feel left out, lonely and unloved.  Peggy and her friends are off in some farmer's field planting rutabaga.  Do I hear laughter?  I like rutabaga.  Amy and Eric are at a Jason Aldeen concert with thirty-six of their closest friends.  I like country music--the new country, not that old twangy stuff.  Oh, look!  There's beautiful Lynnette and handsome Richard.  He's in a tux and her gown is simply stunning.  They're having a wonderful time with their friends and friends of friends, just gadding about town.  I like gadding.

One day, while I was feeding my addiction by snooping around in Facebook, I noticed I was minus one friend.  Oh, no!  Someone had cut me from their friends' list.  But who? I checked the names and everyone was there, except for one.  So, I did the only thing I knew to do.  I Googled it.  And the answer was...

HELIO CASTRONEVES

I love Google.  Well, I don't love it; I just like it immensely.  Google has never failed to answer any of my questions.  "So, why did Helio Castroneves unfriend me on Facebook?" I asked Google again. "Because you're a nobody," Google responded without any regard for my feelings.  Since Google always offers more than one answer to a question, I scrolled down the list for a response less hurtful.  When I kept seeing chat room inquires that read, "Why would Helio Castroneves friend a nobody like Carol Louise on Facebook in the first place?" I called my sister Lynnette.

RINGA DING, DING.  RINGA DING, DING.

"Hi, Sissy." Lynnette answered on the first ring.

"Helio Castroneves unfriended me," I said, looking for sympathy and reassurance.

"Why would Helio Castroneves friend you in the first place?" she asked.

I hung up on her.  Do I look like Google?  I don't have all the answers.  Rick was my friend and a friend of a friend of a friend had friended Helio.  So I thought any friend of a friend of a friend of Rick's could also be my friend.  So I made the request and Helio clicked "ACCEPT" until, that is, he realized I was a nobody and cut me from his list.

After Helio's rejection and Lynnette's confirmation that I was, in fact, a nobody, I needed an outlet to express how cruel, unfair, and disappointing life can be, so I searched Google for an appropriate saying that would fit my particular life crisis.  Then I copied and pasted it on my Facebook wall.

Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines

my character and the quality of my life.  I can choose

to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity

of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and

treasure the most precious gift I have--memories of 

when Helio Castroneves was my friend on Facebook

until he realized I was a nobody and unfriended me.

                                                                  -Walter Anderson and me 

After I posted that on my wall, I went to bed, immobilized by the gravity of rejection,  and cried myself to sleep, because that defines who I am.  No.  Really, it does.