I’ve been underwhelmed with the social networking craze, except for classmates.com (I enjoy connecting with old classmates and finding out how things turned out for them); I set up a myspace page when Sarah got a little wild after her divorce and boy that was a shocking painful experience. I immediately posted on her page and told her to change her picture and stop all that wild behavior. She did, after a while.

She wanted me to go on facebook, so I did and eventually got a bunch of “friends”—three! that I’d never met or heard of, no clue how that happened. But facebook has gotten to be something I have to do rather than I want to do, well, that happened rather quickly. First my sister got upset because I didn’t post on her wall enough. Then she went ballistic when my niece died and I didn’t call her (she didn’t know my niece; while she is my full biological sister, she was adopted at the age of 2 and so only barely knew the rest of the family); she and her kids posted a bunch of mean things to me on facebook.

Then my daughter-in-law and I got in a fight over her terrible behavior. Said fight was communication via cell phones. But…she involved others and they came on facebook and posted terrible things about me. True, their posts were lacking in any kind of sophistication (most of her friends haven’t even graduated from high school and can’t spell let alone write a sentence); and I’m not easily offended, but honestly. I was thinking, “well, facebook isn’t really working for me.”

Oh! Before that my nephew got really mad at me because he thought I’d taken all his mother’s things after she passed away and HE came on yelling at me about not sending the kids the stuff! So boy. Facebook hasn’t been all that fun for me. I’ve been publicly called a bitch by many relatives now. It’s official.

True, I did find my old boyfriend–well, I didn’t, Bookslinger did (thanks, Book!) who I’d jilted at the graduation kegger and I was able to sincerely apologize and cross that off my bucket list; I’ve enjoyed being in touch with a few people, like Marta Silver and my childhood best friend (50 years we’ve been friends, mind-boggling). But more and more facebook has been a thorn in my side. Several people, including my sister and my daughter (both youngest children)—actually, Sarah is the worst culprit at this and it drives me nuts!—will post oblique references to terrible events and then you have to go on and beg them to fill in the details and often it’s something stupid like somebody flipped them off in traffic.

Or—this is mostly the girls at the school where I worked a couple of years ago—-people will post supremely vulgar comments and I get all embarrassed because my good Mormon facebook friends are reading this. Then I have the whiners. Those whose comments are always negative or mooching. Geez, Louise.

I’ve gone blogger a couple of times in the last couple of months when people posted things about politics or opinions otherwise. Just posted my opinion back. And people get mad.

Finally I went in and blocked all whiners and all possibly angry relatives and anybody who cussed gratuitously (you can tell). But then I hurt somebody’s feeling and I thought, “oh, forget it. This is how Roseanne would do facebook.” And I deactivated my account.

But I might go back on and block everybody except for the very pleasant because I certainly don’t need any more negative in my life. But this social networking, well some people take it far too seriously, like it’s really relating to people; others don’t realize a lot of people are reading and post things they’ll regret later; still others should just get a blog because they want comments and they post things to that end rather than keeping in touch; my favorites are from people who are pleasant in real life and post pleasant things. They don’t use facebook as a vent, bid for attention, or substitute for loving relationships.

I think facebook has a voyeuristic quality and I do not care who denies it—we are all a little voyeuristic. I think that’s the original appeal. I’m becoming more and more skeptical of social networking. Also reality TV.

But, I have discovered google earth and I’ve visited all the places on my bucket list! Saves $$, although I do miss the room service and interesting food.