Facebook Guilt

I just want the record to reflect that I coined the term "Facebook guilt." A couple of months ago when the term first occurred to me, I Googled it and got nothing. Nada. Zip. Today, in preparation for this post, I Googled it again, and there's a whole slew of blog postings that now include it. Doesn't matter. It's mine, interwebs. Back off.

Like everything in life, there are aspects of Facebook that I like, and aspects that I don't like. But I will say that the things I anticipated not liking about it have not really presented themselves, while the things I don't like were completely unexpected. For instance, it's been nice reconnecting with people from my past with whom I've lost contact. But the flip side of that coin is that there are people from my past with whom I am perfectly happy to have lost contact, but there they are, nevertheless, staring me down on my request page. There are also people I barely know who want to be my friend. I'm not sure this represents an actual breach of etiquette, or just my personal policy, but I don't add anyone that I don't actually know. If I've never met you face-to-face, or if I couldn't pick you out of a police line-up, I'm not likely to add you as a friend. Sorry.

The guilt comes in with the seemingly endless parade of games, quizzes, gifts, doo-dads and widgets that I find myself assaulted with. If it were Facebook sending me these things, I would have no problem deleting them (indeed, I would have closed my account by now). But it's my friends who send me these things and I can't tell if they are being sent directly to me, as you would a thoughtful gift, or blasted to their entire entourage, like a form letter. Either way, I don't like to say no to my friends. But it's time for some tough love. No, I don't want to join your gang and help fight your Mafia war. There, I said it.

The last bit of guilt comes from simply not checking in often enough. Sometimes I go a whole day without logging in, and I feel like I'm letting my friends down by not observing their online antics. Sorry everyone, I'll try to do better. It's not you, it's me.