HelluvaGirl

There are two types of reactions I get when I tell someone I don’t have a Facebook account:

1. “Really? Wow, respect!”/”OMG, me too!”/”You are so, so cool. I should get rid of mine as well.”
2. “Hmmm. Only idiots, creeps and antisocial types don’t have a Facebook profile. You don’t seem to be either of those, so get it together, woman!”

Last night it got to me, to be totally frank with you. Plus, I guess I wouldn’t mind playing with Tinder for a week or two. So I grabbed Girlfriend’s iPhone and took a good look around the long-abandoned Facebook world – through her profile, that is.

Ok, so there are pictures of me on people’s profiles. That’s not entirely surprising.

I can see a verbal duel going on under one of the photos. Gosh, how I don’t miss that.

Aha, quite a lot of parties and get-togethers photographically documented. Loads of unnecessarily repeated shots. I like Instagram more for pictures specifically.

People try to sell me Facebook saying it’s a place to keep in touch – with the overseas friends, distant relatives and all the acquaintances who don’t have to take pains to call me when they are throwing a party – because all the info is in some closed group, on a wall, or shared via direct messages.

But I don’t miss my distant relatives and their irrelevant comments under my pictures. I don’t think I lose that much not being invited to a party by someone who doesn’t have my phone number or finds it too complicate to use it. Yes, I have been considering using some publicity for the blog after a while – but then again, do I really want everyone to read it?..

I love Twitter as a news channel – the news I wouldn’t hear first thing or at all – where I live. I am interested in the majority of the tweets of the accounts I follow. It’s better than TV or internet news portals because it’s so alive, responsive and fresh with less informational trash in front of my eyes – that’s depending on who you follow, of course.

Totally get how necessary Facebook – as any other social media tool – is for those with startups, businesses and media jobs. Apart from that, it is a means of sustaining the sense of being connected. Important to humankind, so I hear.

I will admit there was some narcissism in my decision to quit Facebook three years ago. Those who really want to read my blog will bother to type one word in the address field, I thought. On a more substantial level, having gotten a “serious” job, I didn’t want another job of filtering out my personal data to fit it to separate kinds of images I had to maintain professionally and otherwise (“Customise what others see” – really? Share to hide?).

Not at all surprisingly, yesterday I finally found myself checking out profiles of people I should not even think about, and that was it: I don’t want that. I don’t want to see how their words don’t match their timelines. It’s a waste of energy. It’s what I will be tempted to do but it won’t do me good. There’s just too much stimulation to my sensitive mind 🙂

So basically Facebook seems like too much work. Too much unwanted engagement for today.

And, to be honest, life isn’t entirely boring without Tinder, either.