A mom blogs that we should "quit telling lies" on Facebook.
"I give everything a hipspectacular filter to make the drudgery look intersting," Sarah Emily Tuttle-Singer confesses.
The look on my face says, "Yes, and the problem is?"
The problem with "fakebooking," as she calls it is that if we make our lives look cloudless and cool, our Facebook friends "feel like they have to pretend as well."
The look on my face still says, "Yes, and the problem is?"
I don't see Facebook as a place to bare my soul. I mean, Good Christ, I have 501 Facebook friends. How many of them do I trust with my soul? About three.
I don't even see Facebook as a place to share my ideas, though I use it to direct my friends to places where I share my ideas.
I hope other people don't feel badly about their own lives because I never post embarrassing thoughts like, "I wonder if there's a service you can call to pick up dog poo when the snow melts?" Or irrational fears or hateful thoughts or jealous rage or sorrowful laments.
Any adult who thinks other people's lives are less confusing than their own—well, they won't be enlightened when Sarah Emily Tuttle-Singer Facebooks about her real-life conversation with her son about how tampons stop the blood from coming out of her vagina.
Having long-ago accepted that life is strange and sad and confounding a lot of the time for most people, I like Facebook precisely because it is mostly a place where people share what makes them proud, cozy and content. What makes them smile and laugh. What excites them and gets their juices flowing.
Facebook: What's not to "like."
But I truly NEED you to bare your soul on Facebook, David. I need a glimpse into that black, curmudgeonly place… even for a moment… so that I can feel that my soul is less dark and curmudgeonly.
Oh, and to know that you’re suffering too. You know. So that I can be supportive about your misery. Perhaps I should go rant on FB about how your inability to truly share wounds me.
(exits stage having completed sarcastic tirade)
Thank you, Vincent. You’re the only one who understands me.