I didn't want to be on facebook

I didn't want to be on facebook. And when I did, I made all my settings super private. And then I said "NO" to lots of people who wanted to "friend" me. And then when I did add people, I ERASED THEM. Not all, just some. I wanted facebook to be just for me and my family. 

Know why? One reason is, I want to know you in real life. I don't want your facebook life. And you don't want mine either. I tend to post super cute things that my kids say. Oh and they are brilliant. You do need to hear those things. ( I actually post those things so that when I make our yearly photo album I'll have cute things close at hand to make the book all the more memorable to us). But I would never post the fact that I just got told I was a dumb mom and that my son hates this family and never wants to be here again, my precious son who has autism and we are just learning how to work with him and we fail multiple times daily. And when we have no money, I'm not going to say, "hey, we ate peanut butter and fishy crackers today for breakfast because that's all we had." No, I'm not going to do that.  And neither do you. We just don't post on those days, and come back when our cheque comes in or we have socially appropriate and cheery things to say again. 

This isn't real life.

I remember a while back this year a player in the NFL committed suicide. One of his teammates comments went something like, "I don't know how we missed it. We were all too busy texting, looking at our phones and not at each other. We missed it. I never want to do that again." So straight forward. We can all be on facebook together and know nothing of our real lives. That to me is very sad and dangerous. 

There's another twist to this -  the other side of the coin. I didn't want to be on facebook, because I DIDN'T want to be known in an uncontrolled environment. I needed my fortification of privacy. I didn't want new friends to know too much. I didn't want acquaintances to be looking through my family photos and basically having an open door to my life when I didn't know whether or not they were safe. I'm not one of those people who posts anything controversial on facebook because it can get crazy real fast. I don't like to argue. 

Complicate this by the fact that my husband is an over the shoulder facebooker and our names are both on the account, and he is quite the opposite of me when it comes to privacy and online networking. Opposites indeed. 

Six months ago, a neighbor invited me to accept friendship on facebook. Ooh man. A neighbor? Someone who doesn't know me but sees me a lot.. do we open the door or... I just left that little friendship invitation dangle there for months. But something happened the other day, and I realized, it's lame to keep people out. Yes, let's be friends face to face. No, you won't find out about the amazing, important or terrible or difficult things in my life via facebook. BUT, if facebook is where you are at, ok. 

I was thinking about highschool and how fortified I was. Scared is the real word. I had no real friends. No one that I let in. Not sure if anyone tried to be my friend. I was too busy believing they wouldn't to notice if they did.  Or I was too busy making rules about who my friends could be. I often think of that and say to myself with - great conviction - If I were to do that again, knowing what I know now, and being who I have become to this point I'd relax and let more friendships in. I'd... and then I realized - I'M STILL DOING IT. Keeping friendships out because they're not coming the way I imagined. Fortifying myself because I can't control the way something works. 

So friend me if you want to. I probably won't say no. But real life happens when we shut our little devices off and look each other in the eyes and start friending each other in real time where the dishes sit in the sink, their are blueberry stains on my socks, and someone just peed on the floor. Gotta go.