My few weeks as a facebook free hermit.

So here we are a few weeks of being facebook free. I'd love to say life without facebook has turned my home into a pristine gleaming palace but children do live here so that is not the case. Is facebook a huge timesuck? Absolutely. Is it an emotional drain? It can be, I mean really who wants to hear 200 plus people complaining about trivial things everyday? Not me and the irony is not lost that I have been just as guilty of doing this. One thing I have realized is I don't miss facebook as much as I thought I would. There are people I miss being connected to and than there are those I do not miss at all. Do I need to be connected with every person I ever knew or worked with or met once? Would they say hi to me if we passed in the streets? Probably not. When I do go back a trimming of the friendslist will happen... again, I do frequently trim but have had a hard time being more firm with trimmings for worry of hurting feelings. Yes I said when I go back. The drawback of not being on facebook is I have lost a way of people I do want to be in contact with having a way to contact me. I'm not much into texting or talking on the phone and correspondence even by email seems to be a dying thing so there really is no way to be connected. The time away has given me time to reflect about how I want to move forward with my account when I do return. All in all I do not regret the decision at all. I enjoy being somewhat of a hermit and I feel like my break was just an extension of that.

Facebook Free Musings

For as long as I can remember I have struggled with not feeling good about myself. Is this a result of my less than healthy upbringing. Just a normal human affliction. Inflaming this is my social awkwardness and the fact I am very much introverted. There are those that I have encountered in life that have had no problem pointing out my flaws. Leaving me feeling like my worst fears are true and that there is something wrong with me. There are people who treat others as projects for them to work on only to discard them when they decide they are done. I love social networking because it allowed me to shed my social awkwardness and just be me but than I discover that others are not happy with who I am. Than there was also the stalker aspect coming in the form a facebook friend of a friend, I 'think' I have finally shed the stalker but can never be to careful.

What i've discovered is friends have no problem passive aggressively taking about their annoying facebook friends. So again I find out somehow I am viewed as flawed. There is a great amount of teasing over how much I facebook as if I am not aware of it. But I find if I don't stay up to date and miss a connections updates than I feel guilty for missing them. So the site I so feverishly avoided and than became enveloped in has become somewhat of a nemesis. I found myself loathing it. So I made the decision to walk away from it temporarily. A decision that is scary as hell because effectively I am taking away any outside interaction with friends and acquaintances. But I feel like it was false connection. Supposed facebook friends who while keeping me around had no desire to really have any interaction with me and actually going out of their way to exclude me socially. When I announced my hiatus no one actually desired to stay connected unless I was staying on facebook. I think I desire real human interaction and need to find out on my own how to achieve that without getting sucked into someones project or exclusive group.

I spent my first facebook free day ill with food poisoning, day two I am recovering from that after affects of that. I realize how reliant I am on the site and second nature when I log onto the computer I automatically go to the site. Can we say addiction anyone? My facebook free goal is 30 days. In that time I hope to figure out how I can stay connected without having it consume my spare time.