I lead a very busy life. I have seven kids, a full time sales job, a 17 year old marriage, various crushing debt, and a perpetually in motion household to juggle. I don’t have time for everything I have to do on the emergency essentials list, let alone time for something extra. True story, I actually found myself at Wal-Mart this morning at 3AM trying to buy backpacks because I didn’t want to waist the extra time I had on my hands due to insomnia.
To compound all this, because I work from home I am pretty much trapped here unless I can make an excuse to get out. Did I mention that here (Greenville) is over a thousand miles away from most of my friends and family. So, Facebook has been the only connection I’ve had to friends scattered around the country and people I don’t get to see. That’s how it started. That’s how it always starts.
What started out as a great way to stay in touch with the world; has turned into a social addiction. Now my life line has become a constant conduit of irritation for me. One of the reasons is that I have too many friends! Right now I have 436 “friends” and that’s nothing compared to most people. I don’t really know all these people that well. Lots of them are business acquaintances, people I haven’t seen since high school (some I still don’t remember) or marketing generated non people. Unfortunately my fake popularity leaves me with a tsunami of pseudo correspondence that I can’t seem to keep up with. I would hide most of these people but then what’s the point of having someone as a friend if you never see anything from them. I can do that without Facebook. Besides, finding those few real nuggets of personal communication in the avalanche posts is why you friended them in the first place. I also can’t deny the voyeuristic allure of seeing what everybody is doing, saying and feeling. But I have made some rules:
1. Applications of almost every kind get hidden. I am blissfully unaware of who is playing farm world, or mafia guy or super word dice. I don’t care. I can hide that and it all goes away.
2. I do not friend the friends of my children. I love my kids and its bad enough that I’m exposed to some the stuff they are saying (and vice versa). If I had to endure a never ending string of bad grammar and text speak they use in lieu of communication, I may do bodily harm to myself or others.
3. I hate amateur DJ’s and Evangelists. If you are going to post 20 links to your favorite songs every day, you are getting hidden from my Home page. If you are posting links to or pasting scripture with no context to your life or good reason 4 times a day you are also getting hidden.
4. If you are from Las Vegas and have a stock photo for a profile and list “credit” anywhere in your info, I am not “friending” you because you are not real. You are a marketing drone for a company and will advertise to me.
That seems to keep some of it at bay, but it still unfortunately leaves me with those that I am unable to selectively block. Stop Facebooking and seek professional help if you are one of these people:
1. Scrap booker - People who constantly post pictures of their kids or pets. Everyone does it once in a while and it’s cool. But if you are doing it every day or “chronicling” the life of a child or pet. Please stop, if not for my sake or their future privacy at least to protect your legacy in their tell-all book.
2. Wiseman – If you have a calendar of daily quotation or a book of said same, keep them to yourself. Odds are if it’s in the book or on the calendar, we’ve all heard it before. You may feel like Gandhi but you look like Xerox.
3. Salesman – If you are continually marketing your company or giving me helpful links to news articles about your job, please stop. I don’t like my job, why would I want to like someone else’s. Oh and posting a link to news article does not make me see you as an authority, it makes me see you as a person who knows how to post links.
4. Politician – There was a time in my life when I was passionate about politics. That time was when I was young and stupid and believed that any of it mattered. All political ranting ever gets anyone is angry, stupid looking and stereo typed. I have an easy enough time doing all of these things as it is and don’t need any help. So don’t bait me into your discussion of how your side is the second coming and the other side is evil incarnate. I personally prefer to be happy rather than right these days.
5. Exhibitionist – Everyone knows that person who posts every embarrassing picture of themselves and friends from parties, makes every comment a double entendre or outright come on. If you’ve forgotten it’s a public forum and don’t care about yourself, please think of those you are posting to, and those that see these post on their wall but don’t know you or get the inside jokes. That’s what an email or text thread is for. Keep it private if not for you, for those who may become your inadvertent collateral damage.
6. Infected – If you can’t resist clicking on links to outrageous content that is clearly a virus and spreading it to everyone on your friend list, you should really stop Facebooking and just go back to browsing porn.
7. Parrots – If you loved chain letters and couldn’t understand why everyone stopped emailing you, please (for the love of God) don’t get on Facebook. And if you must, at the very least disable your ability to copy and paste text. Being dared to, shamed not to or blackmailed by the love of God to post something leaves me no choice but to ignore it. Causes, heartfelt sentiment or moral evangelization that is simply copied and pasted means as much to me as the act of throwing a penny at a homeless guy’s head means to ending poverty. If I have a cause I will donate money or time to it, both of which are tangible acts of commitment to helping someone else. As far as I’m concerned, “raising awareness” by itself only helps you feel good about yourself.
8. Black hole – If you need to vomit your relationship problems and emotional foibles for the world to see, please have a point. Being depressed for depression sake is, well, depressing. I have more than enough drama in my life already that I’m trying to off-load. As Jack said, “Go sell crazy somewhere else, we’re all full here!”
Now don’t get me wrong, we are all guilty of this behavior from time to time (myself included). If you find that any of these behaviors are habitual you need help. Remember, all things in moderation.
At the end of the day, though, all this is pretty tolerable. If you want to know the truth, what is really killing me (and making me consider dumping the whole thing) is my own behavior. I find myself stalking people. If my wife tells me one thing and posts another, my blood pressure approaches aneurism levels. If my kids are doing and saying crazy kid things, I become over protective. If I feel like I’m being mischaracterized or maligned, I become defensive. If I don’t get the joke, I feel alienated and left out. It’s such a public forum that even with the ability to retract what you say, once it’s out there, it’s out there forever (or at least 3 years according to the privacy agreement).
But then again, isn’t that the way real life is? Don’t we all wish we could take back things we said or did? Don’t we all want to erase the damage we’ve done to those we love? Don’t we all want to be loved and accepted? I know, the problem isn’t Facebook, the problem is me. It’s just that Facebook isn’t real enough anymore to help me. It is, unfortunately real enough to break my brain.
I don’t know what to do. Maybe I should take a poll of all my Facebook friends and see what they think ;)
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
Friday, August 12, 2011
Wolverine Dad
Last month I broke my hand (don’t ask) and went to the doctor. I begged him not to put a permanent cast on it because I have to use my computer to work. I begged and pleaded and finally he conceded to letting me wear a Velcro splint. There was one condition. I had to return in two weeks to take another x-ray and if it wasn’t healing properly they would replace it with a permanent one.
Two weeks went by and I returned for my x-ray. The doctor came in looking concerned and asked me lots of questions about my hand. Had I ever broken it before? Was I taking any other medications? Then he left and came back with another doctor and they were both frowning at my x-rays. Now I was worried.
“Um, is there something wrong with my hand, doc?” I asked.
“What’s wrong with your hand is that there’s almost nothing wrong with your hand. It’s almost completely healed.”
They proceeded to show me the x-rays and sure enough what was a large v shaped split was now a barely visible line. I was kind of taken aback.
“So no cast right?”
“Heck, you don’t even need the splint from looking at this. However, just wear it for another week.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t feel comfortable telling you to not wear it after two weeks.” He said shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head.
Doctor two asked, “Have you ever broken any other bones?”
I proceeded to tell him about my collar bone and how it took four and a half weeks to heal.
“Hmmm that’s pretty normal. Can you tell me more about the break?”
I then told him how it shattered and never grew back together with the bones meeting tip to tip. Rather, they rested next to each other with about a half inch overlap. This garnered more raised eyebrows and I was told that a set like that would normally take twice as long to heal or more. Apparently four and a half weeks for that was faster than the hand. I responded that I was in college and much younger then.
At that point I decided to leave before people in dark sunglasses and lab coats came to take me to a “secured facility” to “study” me.
For a long time we’ve joked around my house that I’m the Omega Man. I’ll be the only one left after the mutant virus outbreak because of my odd blood. I found out at a blood donor years ago that my blood has rare antibodies that make me an ideal donor for infant surgeries (it also helps that I’m O+). Apparently lots of people have a few extra antibodies, but I have several.
I’ve also always contested that there is something wrong with the way that my nerve endings are myelinated, because I don’t feel pain like I should. Believe me; I’m not tough by any stretch of the imagination. I just don’t feel pain like I should. It’s the only way I can describe it.
But this bone thing tops them all. I missed my calling. Should have been a stuntman or a soldier or as I heard my son saying to his friend the other day, “No, seriously! My dad is like Wolverine!”
Two weeks went by and I returned for my x-ray. The doctor came in looking concerned and asked me lots of questions about my hand. Had I ever broken it before? Was I taking any other medications? Then he left and came back with another doctor and they were both frowning at my x-rays. Now I was worried.
“Um, is there something wrong with my hand, doc?” I asked.
“What’s wrong with your hand is that there’s almost nothing wrong with your hand. It’s almost completely healed.”
They proceeded to show me the x-rays and sure enough what was a large v shaped split was now a barely visible line. I was kind of taken aback.
“So no cast right?”
“Heck, you don’t even need the splint from looking at this. However, just wear it for another week.”
“Why?”
“Because I don’t feel comfortable telling you to not wear it after two weeks.” He said shrugging his shoulders and shaking his head.
Doctor two asked, “Have you ever broken any other bones?”
I proceeded to tell him about my collar bone and how it took four and a half weeks to heal.
“Hmmm that’s pretty normal. Can you tell me more about the break?”
I then told him how it shattered and never grew back together with the bones meeting tip to tip. Rather, they rested next to each other with about a half inch overlap. This garnered more raised eyebrows and I was told that a set like that would normally take twice as long to heal or more. Apparently four and a half weeks for that was faster than the hand. I responded that I was in college and much younger then.
At that point I decided to leave before people in dark sunglasses and lab coats came to take me to a “secured facility” to “study” me.
For a long time we’ve joked around my house that I’m the Omega Man. I’ll be the only one left after the mutant virus outbreak because of my odd blood. I found out at a blood donor years ago that my blood has rare antibodies that make me an ideal donor for infant surgeries (it also helps that I’m O+). Apparently lots of people have a few extra antibodies, but I have several.
I’ve also always contested that there is something wrong with the way that my nerve endings are myelinated, because I don’t feel pain like I should. Believe me; I’m not tough by any stretch of the imagination. I just don’t feel pain like I should. It’s the only way I can describe it.
But this bone thing tops them all. I missed my calling. Should have been a stuntman or a soldier or as I heard my son saying to his friend the other day, “No, seriously! My dad is like Wolverine!”
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