Adios Facebook!

Facebook has become the new Perez Hilton. What used to be a somewhat mild obsession with celebrity culture and what latest mess they have gotten themselves into, Facebook has taken over my life. Instead of obsessing over celebrities and what they are wearing, I am e-stalking people I went to high school with and seeing what they are up to. I know all about these strangers lives. I have seen their wedding pictures, pictures of their first born, know how they spent their Saturday night, and sometimes what they had for dinner. Many times, these people aren’t even my “friends” but instead they are friends of friends. I have looked through many photo albums of total complete strangers many of whom if I saw walking down the street, I would know that they are pregnant with their third girl. That is just weird. For about a year now I have been facebooking and I have amassed almost 100 friends (I am not and have never been the popular girl) but the truth is, in my “real” life, I still only have my one girlfriend that I have had since I was 7 years old. I knew that this obsession with Facebook had gone too far when this past week, a cousin of a girl I went to high school died. I wasn’t really ever friends with this girl in high school. In fact, she was popular and rich and a cheerleader. Although she was very nice, I never really knew her but for some reason or another we are friends on Facebook. Anyway, her cousin died this last week and he was my age and had a son my daughter’s age. He went up to Oregon to see his family for Christmas, got the flu and died. He was 30 years old. He left behind a beautiful wife and son. Now, I don’t know them at all but I have been obsessed with them for the past week. I have read posts to this guys wall about what a great guy he was, I have seen pictures of his kid and family, and read posts made my his brother how sad he is that his brother died. I have never handled death all that well to begin with but this whole thing made me so sad. I felt so sad for his wife and his baby. There they were trying to celebrate their son’s first Christmas and then he died. The whole story was just too much for me. I didn’t go to the funeral but I thought about it. This whole thing got me to start thinking. Does anything good come from Facebook? If I didn’t have an account I wouldn’t have known about it and then been depressed about it for the last 2 weeks. This is just one (extreme) example of me and my too much Facebooking. For example, let’s take a look down memory lane. There were the popular girls in high school who had it all. Their parents could actually afford the private school tuition (I was on financial aid), they had new cars wrapped in red bows for their 16th birthday, they always had dates, their lives just seemed easy. What is this girl up to now? Easy street! She is a stay at home mom, a home owner (they all are), with a gorgeous baby, she didn’t gain an ounce of weight, and here she is posing in her first class flight to Argentina with her 9 month old who has her own airplane seat! The popular people are all still popular and still have it easy and look great. The single girls have great jobs and hang out with their other ad exec friends going to bars and seeing bands play and have time to go to bootie bootcamp, others have babies and are going to mommy and me swim classes in their brand new minivan. The whole comparing my life to Facebook was making me depressed. I gained a shitload of weight during my pregnancy. Yeah, ok I was cute before that but I was never a skinny minny. Now, I live in the ghetto working my temp job that will hopefully become permanent, while my husband stays at home with the little one and he attempts to work from home. Ok, my husband is gorgeous, that part is true, but we are totally broke and there is nothing glamorous about that. What am I supposed to do with these 100 friends anyway? I don’t actually hang out with them. I would say maybe 5 of those have actually seen my daughter in real life, and the other 5 are family members. So 10% of my “friends” I actually know. What I have learned this last week with this poor guy’s death is that Facebook and I need a break from each other. My obsession with keeping in the know of everybody else’s life was actually ruining mine. I was focusing on what I don’t have and what I will never have which was just ruining my mood. I have already come to grips with the fact that I will never be a homeowner but I don’t need to see everyone else including high school sluts standing in their new front yards in front of the ‘sold’ sign. It is just depressing. Facebook and I are on the outs.