Krissy and my absence from Facebook is partially functional, partially because we admittedly like to act like we're "too cool for school" sometimes. I mean, we have to be considered "1st generation Facebook-ers"...we had accounts back when you had to have a valid college email address to join. By the time we closed our accounts, Facebook apps were just starting to catch on, but for the most part they didn't exist. Farmville was probably still a glimmer in some software developer's eye at that point. Now, grandmothers and kindergarteners alike can join, and there are enough Facebook apps and games that you probably can save you Xbox money for something else if you really want to. But Krissy and I (summoning my best "hipster" voice here) liked Facebook before it was cool...well, not really I guess, but you get the point. The fact is that it's fun to go against the grain sometimes. When you were a kid, you may have bought this really dope pair of sneakers that no one else had yet. If everyone else went out and bought them a week later, where's the fun in that? Some of the looks you get when people find out you are not on Facebook are priceless though.
So, part of it is just being a contrarian for the sake of being a contrarian, but truthfully by the time I deleted my account Facebook had become more of a pain in the ass than anything else. I am awful enough at correspondence and responding to people's emails, texts, and voicemails. Sometimes I really do wonder if people tried contacting me by carrier pigeon whether my response time would take just as long as it does now. Facebook was just another communication medium on top of all of those that was bogging me down. And for anyone who has ever read this blog, you know that I can be pretty wordy with even the simplest subject matter...not a good combination for me. The sad part is that it's not even like I had "that" many friends, but I guess I should be glad I didn't. Also, Facebook is nice for staying in the loop on what's going on in your circle of friends and stuff, but most of the thrill is gone once you're in a committed relationship. Just as The Social Network made perfectly clear, Facebook was and still is fueled by sex. Sure, it's nice to reconnect with old friends and look at a family member's vacation pictures, but at the end of the day people go on Facebook to look at and read about people they want to bone...people they knew from back in the day, people they know now, people who are friends of friends of their friends and they actually have no idea how they stumbled onto their page, but they're there now and...anyway. Even when Krissy and I were just in the beginning stages of going out, we still used it as a means to flirt with each other and whatnot. We are, for all intents and purposes, and old married couple now, so 90% of the intrigue that Facebook has for most people is gone for us. The other cue for me to exit stage left on Facebook was when kids that I used to be a camp counselor for in summer camp started to send me friend requests. On the 1 hand, it was kind of cool that these kids remembered me enough to look me up. On the other hand, it's annoying when you have to explain to your wife that all the girls she doesn't know that are writing on your wall are actually 12 years old. Also, most of them type in that weird version of English that kids use these days ("hAi, wAzuP?")...sigh. It was all just too much to deal with for an old fart like me.
That was pretty much the end of Facebook for me, and Krissy soon followed suit. Our friends like to chastise us for not having it, but I'm not sure how much we're missing. Every once in a while Krissy will go on her little brother's account because she heard that some girl she went to high school with got fat and she wants to see pictures, but those times are few and far between. My friend Mac has made the argument before that even if I no longer used it or kept up with it, I should have just kept my account open. What would it hurt? But to me doing that is just silly. Before long, Facebook would be a bottomless wasteland of a website just like (shudders) MySpace. No, a clean break is better in the long run I think. Besides, it's nice to be somewhat off the grid. Maybe the world could stand to be a little less connected from time to time, but that's just me (he says from his blog...oh well).
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