Friday, October 2, 2009

Peer Pressure


Well, I finally did it. Facebook. I said I never would. But, hey, there are a lot of things I said I'd never do and have. Don't make me list them.

I was a hold-out but deep down I knew I'd cave. It was just a matter of when. It's like the first time I drank. Everyone started drinking at a high school party and I waited until like five minutes before we all had to go home and drank 45 screwdrivers in less than a minute to catch up.

Not to brag, but in less than a day I already had over 30 friends. Several I've never heard of. Several have never heard of me. I thought when Facebook made suggestions of who should be your friends (Facebook is like the FBI) that these people had already invited you to be friends. "Well," I thought to myself, "Josh looks like a nice person who probably never committed a felony and I don't want to offend him ... Sure! Let's be friends!" And then I get a note that Josh confirmed me as a friend. Which means I invited him. Does Josh wonder who I am and suspect we slept together? Josh looks promiscuous.

I am also friends with a fellow I knew briefly in the early 90s when my friend worked with him. He called me the "blonde Don Rickles." Back then he was referring to my sarcasm but I think he's probably pleasantly surprised I'm actually starting to look slightly like Don Rickles as well.

I spent about two hours sorting through photos trying to come up with an appropriate profile picture. The last decent photo of me is from about six years ago. But it seems disingenuous to post a photo of a person you no longer resemble. But given I swat anyone who comes within five feet of me with a camera, my recent photo options are limited. I settled on a photo from right before I got pregnant. Less than three years ago and it's a bit fuzzy. Works for me.

My main priority on Facebook will be to "untag" unflattering photos of myself that others post. Given I don't let cameras near me that should only take up 10 percent of my Facebooking (I understand you can now use "Facebook" as a verb). The other 90 percent will be stopping myself from making belittling comments on other people's stuff. Which is why I am never going on Facebook after a couple of glasses of wine. Who knows the havoc I will wreak. By the time I wake up the next morning and have insulted not only all of my friends but all of my friends friends, I will have been de-friended all over these United States. (I decided I am not going to be international friends with anyone. I have to draw the line somewhere. And if that line isn't going to be only befriending people I actually know, I'll use the U.S. border as my criteria for friendship.)

BUT NO TWITTER. This I mean. If I ever announce that I'm twitting or tweeting or what-have-you, kindly sneak into my house one evening and smother me.



13 comments:

  1. And here I thought I was the only person left not on facebook. Thanks for abandoning me. The pressure to assimilate IS pretty strong, though.

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  2. I didn't really picture you looking like Don Rickles.

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  3. One of us. One of us.

    Just wait until you start stalking old boyfriends. You don't have to feel ashamed, we all do it...

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  4. if you're in the friend adding mode...www.facebook.com/nicoleodell :)

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  5. FB is great and you should give Twitter a try. don't knock it 'til you try it. you would not believe the "crazy" people that find you on Twitter, luckily you can block them. my FB friends are people i know now and knew in HS and college. i have never sent requests to the "suggestions" from the FB people. take care and have fun.

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  6. I like to refer to it as "twating", for obvious reasons.

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  7. Ugh! Your making me want to cave in too!! God, the peer pressure is really getting to me. Love your blog, especially "I make poop"! Really cute.

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  8. No!! Don't cave. I swear I am going to start an anti-facebook site. Or down with facebook. These, of course, probably already exist. I should really look into it...

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  9. Laugh out loud funny! I am not going to put LOL because we all know that we people write LOL they are not really laughing out loud. But I was...

    I was on a big facebook kick for a while but now I only check it 3 times a day and on phone once a day. I am very selective on the photos. I use my kids in my profile so I don't have to find a picutre of myself. Untagging is the best...I just had to untag a bunch from my husbands 20th high school reunion. Middle aged drunk people is not cute or funny.

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  10. You say that now.... I give you 6 months! Twitter is just TOO MUCH FUN! Seriously! It's like Facebook for the lazy (that's me!), it's pretty much just statuses. And the best part is you can stalk... er, follow... people without them having to accept you as a friend. Because, let's be honest, a lot of people don't accept me. Period.

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  11. I joined Facebook a few months back and am sort of amazed by it, mostly by how much time people apparently spend on it. I really only check in every few weeks, when I get a friend request from another person who found me because I'm a friend of one of their friends, etc. And it's always full of people's comments, like they're living their whole lives there. Maybe it's just that, as my sister pointed out, we never post updates because we never do anything cool enough that we'd want it to be the only thing we ever posted about. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Or insanity. Or something.

    I also joined Twitter but have never Tweeted anything. Though I do have a handful of followers. People I've never met, whose accounts are now suspended. I am crazy popular.

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  12. Oh my God. I never thought of that. I'm not on Facebook but my pictures can be? I can be TAGGED and not a member?
    WTF, privacy act my ass. Can someone check for me? I'm still holding out and not joining.

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