Facebook is the devil

I have a love-hate relationship with Facebook. First, the love.

It has allowed me to get back in touch with people from high school and college. This has probably been the best part of Facebook.
I can keep up to date on people's lives, from pics of kids, to where they went this past weekend, to what they are doing this very second.
I can reach a lot of people at once. Approximately five minutes after I was laid off, I updated my status to read "Faith just got the ax." Within 15 minutes, I received a ton of sympathetic comments, a few personal emails, and a phone call. This saved me a lot of trouble of sending out emails to friends. Since bad news travel fasts, I also received friendship requests from a half dozen people within the hour, mostly former coworkers who had heard the news because I was friends with their friends.
There are a ton of silly, pointless quizzes, some of which are kind of fun, especially the ones about friends. Who knew a friend from high school has been married three time? Not me, at least not until I took the quiz about her.
You can be a fan of almost anything. Another silly thing about Facebook, but it is a interesting to see what people like and to see what you have in common with friends and strangers alike.
You get to see a side of some people you might not have known. Sometimes this side is a little odd or unexpected, but most of the time it is what it is.

But Facebook has its drawbacks too. There are just some things about it that I either don't get or I just can't stand. For instance:

I think the term "friend" is used too loosely. I wish you could add "contacts" instead. Some people who have asked me to be their friend I barely remember. I am pretty sure I have never even talked to some of them.
Sometimes it feels like high school, the part I don't miss. I am so concerned about hurting a person's feelings that I have yet to reject a friendship request. In some cases, I am friends with people I am not sure I ever talked to. I wonder why these people bothered to friend me. Just to have a lot of "friends" for the sake of a big number? And in some cases, these people have never sent me a message, written on my wall, or commented on anything I have posted. So why did they want to be my friend to begin with?
When you have too many friends, it becomes hard to keep up. I have over 100 friends. I did not want that many; 50 would have been fine, but I have not turned any request down, for fear of hurting someone's feelings (see my previous point). But now I have to keep scrolling down on the off chance I may miss a good update from someone. It happened to me when I announced I was laid off; some of my friends missed that post and then had no idea what subsequent posts were about.
Some of the requests people send are annoying or questionable. With Facebook you can send people drinks, flowers, etc. I go along with some of those and ignore most. But when a guy friend asked me to lick his lollipop, I drew the line there. I did not want a comment posted that read "Faith just licked Aaron's lollipop." I don't think he meant anything by it, but if I were his wife and read that post, I would not have been happy.
Facebook is addictive and a huge time suck. Enough said.

I think it is funny how different generations use Facebook. I have a few young "friends" on Faceboook who just graduated from PSU this month. Unlike a lot of my same-aged friends, they are rarely on FB; a status update for them usually means telling everyone about a party or a fraternity event. For most of my friends, we write about what we are doing or just did, and more often than not it is about kids or current events.

I suppose I will continue to stay on Facebook, at least until the job search kicks into high gear. I have my profile set so only friends can see it, but you just never know...

What a year 2021 has been (Day 7)

I have almost no words for what happened yesterday at the Capitol. Protesting is one thing (though I truly think it is and has been time to move on). But to storm the Capitol? A friend on Facebook said, quite simply, " Almost 20 years ago a group of people on an airplane sacrificed themselves to protect the Capitol. How far we have fallen!" Indeed. And, yes, it IS storming the Capitol. I have seen numerous videos of people knocking down barricades/fences, pushing police officers, and breaking windows and climbing through them. That is beyond protesting. And even if a protestor did not do those things, if they followed those seditionists past those barricades and into the building, they are just as guilty. I did not support the violent protests this summer that resulted in damages to businesses and public property (I was in full support of the actual protests). But I also acknowledged as a white person, I cannot truly put myself in the position of a black person who is angry a...

Why do they stand up there and say that when they are just lying?

That extra-long title is courtesy of my nine-year-old and was something she uttered during "Say Yes to the Dress" on Friday evening. I watch very little reality TV, but I make an exception for this show because I like to look at the dresses. And sometimes, the stories are heart-warming. Typically at the end of the show, a snippet of a wedding is aired. In this particular show, a woman who was confined to a wheelchair was exchanging vows with her fiance. After the two of them finished, J made her comment. I asked her what she meant as I must have been on the computer while the TV was on, and she explained that because so many people just get divorced, why do they even say "as long as we both shall live"? That is tough one, kid. I tried with what I thought was a sound explanation: Most of the people who get married truly believe they will be together the rest of their lives, but sometimes it just doesn't work out. But if you don't think that you will be ...

Disenfranchised Republican

When I went to vote this a.m., I handed my ID to the guy, since my last name can be tricky. He looked for several minutes in the box with the cards. Then he asked if I was in the right place (there is another area in this room, for people in a different neighborhood, I presume). And I told him that this is where I have always voted. He then reviewed the bound paper list, found my name, but could not figure out why it was there, yet not in the box with the cards. Then he realized what was going on and rather exclaimed, "Oh, you are a Republican!" One of the ladies sitting next to him said, "Oh, one of those." I said I assumed they had not seen too many of "my kind" that morning, and she said I was the third. Then, being the open person I am, I eagerly said I was coming to rock the vote and vote for Ron Paul. One of the women commented that she liked some of the things he had stood for, perhaps to try to make me feel as if I was not voting for a terrible per...

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