Facebook is Not Real Life

It seems that most people now are part of the Facebook community. Almost everyone I know is on it (except two of my best friends oddly enough) and most people spend hours adding photos, poking people, reading other people’s walls etc.

I found it pretty exciting at first. I got to find out what happened to the people I went to high school with, and see pictures of people I used to work with or date. I’ve actually made quite a good friend of someone I used to work with, even though I haven’t seen him in well over five years. I’m playing Scrabble with people I might never do anything with otherwise because of the distance between us and even meeting some new people.

But I’m discovering that like anything else on the Internet, Facebook should be taken with a grain of salt. Probably a pretty big one at that.

Facebook gives you just enough personal information about other people to make you feel like you’re more connected to them than you really are. You can see their address, phone number, pictures of their vacations, wedding, kids, cars, houses and hobbies and you think: “We’re such good friends!” After all, if you weren’t on their friend list, you wouldn’t be able to see anything, so you must be good friends.

Wrong.

There are people I added to Facebook, both through friend requests I received and friend requests I made that I haven’t spoken to at all since I added them. It’s not because I don’t really like them, or wanted it too look like I have more friends than I really do. I was genuinely happy to add those people, excited to see them again after a long absence and I had romantic hopes of friendships renewed, invitations to social gatherings and the possibilities of being closer to the people I already talk to somewhat regularly.

These hopes, with a couple of exceptions, have not been realized.

It occurred to me recently that the reason I hear from less than half the people on my Facebook list is because I already wasn’t hearing from them. I already wasn’t contacting them because – brace yourself – we grew apart and we no longer have a relationship that can be described as a friendship. We have a shared set of memories of an old friendship, but not a current friendship. We drifted apart by choice, or through laziness because shared memories aren’t enough to build a close friendship on.

But now that they’re on my friend list, what do I do about it? I’ve removed a few people. I removed those people that were actively making me unhappy. If I never see them, never hear from them and they ignore all my attempts at contact…why persist? Why torture myself with pictures of their life that they so clearly don’t see me as being a part of? Life is way too short for that kind of crap.

That being said, I do like Facebook. I’ve found what I think will be a very lasting and good friendship, I get to play a lot of Scrabble, see pictures of my friend’s children and make plans with people both near and far.

I’ve thought about just shutting down my Facebook account, but I won’t. Not just now anyway. I think as long as I treat it as a form of entertainment as well as a way to keep in touch, then it’ll be OK.  I just keep telling myself: Facebook isn’t real life, it just looks that way.