My husband and I, after fifteen primarily blissful years together, have suddenly found ourselves on either side of the Great Decision of the age: Twitter or Facebook.
Yes, I know, there are legions of people who manage to straddle the line and do both, but I’m sort of an “all or nothing” person, and with only so much disposable time at hand, I found I had to make a firm decision. Twitter won out.
And so, one night, with the compassionate support of a good friend on MSN I managed to “unfriend” or ignore all those who had requested the pleasure of my company, and I shut down my Facebook account. It required a rather largish glass of wine for courage, but afterwards, I’ll admit I slept like a baby.
Please remember that I’m the type of person who has to turn out all the lights in the house when I run out of Halloween candy -– guiltily flinching in the dark as the laughing voices, in Doppler fashion, move toward the front door and away. When the FedEx man comes to the door and I don’t want to stop writing (or even comb my hair), I sort of hold my breath, not wanting to hurt his feelings, until I hear the package drop on the front stoop, and the truck gears up and drives down the street.
The process on Facebook was simply too difficult for me. I’m aware this is a failing of mine, not of the 250 million other people in this big world of ours whose days begin and end with it. I’ve been told I took it all much too seriously –- which I’m certain is true.
When I got a birthday wish from a friend of a cousin of an acquaintance, I felt I had to answer it with, at the very least, a short thank you. I’m not inordinately popular, but when you multiply that by thirty or more, there goes my birthday wish of a day of peace, writing at my computer. When a newborn’s picture is posted, aren’t we required, as members of the human race, to send a message back saying the baby is adorable? And now that I know about said child, is a gift expected?
I’m sure if I asked these questions of the internet, I’d get 250 million answers –- most giving me the one my friends gave me: “If you don’t want to answer, then don’t.” But there I was again in the back bedroom, hiding from the laughing children dressed as Hello Kitty and Harry Potter, wishing I’d bought more candy.
So, the final exercise of rejecting my nephew’s best friend, or ignoring a person I went to junior high school with and haven’t spoken to in 25 years, or of not answering a note put on my wall by a dear friend of my late brother Kim –- required an actual, human friend online giving me permission, and the glass of wine referred to earlier. Once it was done, I vowed never again to open the silly thing.
Enter my wonderful, practical, not-always-good-at-staying-in-touch husband. I’ve been on Twitter since February of 2009, and have tried in vain to get him hooked. Suddenly, he announces that he’s starting a Facebook account, and my reaction surprises me so much, I actually laugh out loud. He may as well have told me he’s embarking on an affair.
But, as usual, he’s right about this being the perfect forum for his way of staying in touch. He can post his ongoing study of sunsets, which he loves to photograph, so that instead of just describing them to his mother, he can say, “go to my Facebook page and look.” He can, as he did yesterday, share the joy of an exciting San Francisco 49er’s win with friends from work. A old girlfriend from high school posts pictures of her husband and children, and he smiles while he sips his coffee, telling me long-ago stories.
So I suppose, in a way, we have the best of both worlds. I scroll happily through my timeline on Twitter, reading tips on writing to him, sharing useless but endlessly interesting trivia, telling him news of friends from the UK and Paris, or what @StephenFry or @WilliamShatner are up to, and reading bits of blogs from around the world.
He, in turn, lets his family know that I’m still alive, but no, I’m not on Facebook any more.
The perfect mixed marriage.
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