Sometimes it takes a big person to recognise when a relationship isn't working out. "It's not you - it's me," has become a cliche and a get out clause. But in this case, I have to say, "It's not me - it's YOU!" You crave my attention and you have so many finicky rules and attitudes that I only discover if I ask the right question. And frankly you're doing my head in.
It only less than two hours of frustration-induced migraine to know that Facebook isn't for me. Maybe I'm the wrong generation, maybe I haven't read the instructions thoroughly or really understood the benefits; maybe I'm just a miserable sod. Maybe I'm using 'maybe' just a little too much.
After Musa Publishing accepted my 5000 word short story The Silent Hills, they mentioned FB to its stable of authors as a great tool for promoting our work. I find LinkedIn really user friendly and I've recently fallen for the charms of Twitter (thanks in part to the tweets of Jimmy Carr and Crab Quotes), so why not Facebook. I mean, how hard can it be to befriend a few people and spread the word. Pretty hard, it turns out. Firstly, my business FB page only does 'likes' and secondly a personal account has miraculously appeared that tags my comments as me and not my business.
As Anne said to me today, after receiving a friend request: 'This person used to ignore me in a roomful of people, so why would I want to become an electronic friend of theirs?'
I understand that social networking taps into our deepest needs to belong and feel valued, whether we're intent on overtly selling a concept, product or service, or unconsciously advertising our needs and opinions. But time and purpose, once frittered away, can never be retrieved (okay, so it's a bit dramatic, but that's how some writers are).
The interesting thing was how I felt after I'd deactivated my account*. It was as if Sisyphus had been given a reprieve. I was freed from the mire of who to befriend, what to read and when the right time is for a gentleman to poke. Plus I can spend the time checking tweets, updating LinkedIn and blogging.
* I know, even deactivated FB pages can be defrosted.
I think if you've got this blog, twitter and LinkedIn you don't really need to be on facebook as well anyway! Not until you are an international superstar anyway - and then you'll have "people" who can do that sort of thing for you.
ReplyDeleteI think if I was to join facebook now I'd find it very confusing. I can only really cope because when I joined - about 5 years ago - it was a lot simpler!
I think it's the public nature of it that bothers me, if that makes sense?
ReplyDeleteI agree with Chloe - facebook isn't the be all and end all. If you have a savy friend they could set it up so that your twitter updates facebook automatically and you need never deal with it again but get the best of both worlds. Not sure if it's best for platform building though.
ReplyDeleteFB is crazy at the moment as they keep changing it and adding new stuff - it stresses me out and I'm a Comms Officer, so I need to get to grips with it all.
Public nature? Twitter is public - a FB page is different to a personal account (where you just add friends really). Plus, it's not you - the pages on Facebook are not up to scratch. They have caused me all manner of problems.
Good luck with it, I'm sure you'll get there.