Me and Facebook (or Why I Eventually Gave In)

Until a couple of months ago, I might have been the last person (besides my husband) under age 40 who was not on Facebook. Technically, I had "business" Facebook page for PookieTown Designs, but I didn't do much with it. Why the delay? Here are my reasons.

1. Originally, I had a problem with the whole Facebook lexicon of "friending," "unfriending," and "liking" and "disliking." It seemed so high school. A place and an attitude I didn't care to revisit.
2. As time went on, I became a little sore about the fact that my friends, people I'd grown up with, people I went to college with (but didn't see anymore because I moved a few hours North) stopped calling me and even slowly stopped responding to emails. What did I hear about this? "You should get on Facebook." What did I infer? "I don't care about you enough to spend any time maintaining this relationship." {It's not like I sat around all day dwelling on this. After all, I (and most of my friends) were busy growing careers and/or families; but when the mention of certain people came up, a little ache in my heart would throb, like an old wound that never really healed.} 
3. Being a SAHM I always sort of feel intimidated by other women who work outside the home. I have the bad habit of assuming that their lives are busier and more important, and therefore if I was on Facebook posting about my life everyone would see how boring/unimportant/uninteresting I really am. 
4. I felt like Facebook just fostered narcissism & superficial relationships. If I have a friend, I want to be a friend. I pride myself on being loyal to my friends, and this absence of communication felt like a betrayal.  I  accept and know to be true that part of becoming an adult is learning to adjust to the seasons of life. It's difficult to maintain relationships with people who are no longer in your day-to-day life, but...
5. I am stubborn.

Then I was informed that a friend's daughter had cancer. This wasn't just any friend. This was my best friend from college. The person I lived with, laughed with, fought with, and shared clothes with for 4 years. And probably the person I most missed in terms of "long lost friends." Our drift, like most probably do, happened gradually. Fading from phone calls and a few visits, showers for that first baby, to infrequent text messages, and emails, ultimately to annual Christmas cards and birth announcements for the subsequent babies (if that). The conversations we did have felt so stilted and awkward (at least to me) I almost felt worse after having them. I knew my friend was busy. She had a little boy with special needs, a daughter, a job, a husband and a life. I got it, I really did...but it still stung. 

And then her little girl's cancer came back and the unfairness of it all took my breath away. As soon as the news broke that a tumor which had been removed 6 months previously was back and had progressed to stage 4, I got online and found their family picture on a mutual friend's website. It dawned on me that I hadn't even seen a picture of my friend, her family, or her children, in years. A support page was quickly created on Facebook for their family. I thought about it for about 5 seconds and decided if there was ever a time to get on Facebook now was that time. All of my reasons for not being on Facebook were about me, and this was most assuredly NOT. 

In the few months I've been on Facebook, I've "reconnected" with many of those people I had completely lost contact with. It's been lovely to see their faces, get updates, see pictures of their children, etc. So is Facebook the time-sucking vortex of narcissism that I once believed it to be? The answer, which most of you probably already know, is "it can be." 

I have also since had the insight that maybe my friends had felt rejected by me for not joining a forum in which they could easily stay in touch. Perhaps, in my refusal to join Facebook, I was demanding that any relationship I have with people be on my terms. That last one didn't sit well with me and the image I had of myself. I feel as though now I have created a bridge for people to be a part of my life, if they so choose. Additionally, I have been moved by and seen the tremendous power of social media for uniting people in a common cause, e.g. supporting a 4-year-old girl fighting for her life.  I've taken a lot of well-deserved guff from people who know how I felt about Facebook. But I'm OK with it. I'm taking care of my side of the street, as Dr. Phil would say, and that's all I can do.