I switched to the new Facebook profile now rather than wait for them to do it for me one day. I hate Facebook more with each new upgrade. All the new Facebook does is make me more acutely aware of how I can’t figure out anything by which I’m happy to define myself. I am not my job. I am not my four years at college. I am not where I grew up. Or, at least, I don’t want to be defined by these quick-and-easy biographical factoids.

Also, I’ve untagged myself from all Facebook pictures. I don’t wish to be tagged anymore. I certainly don’t want the last five photos of myself strewn across my profile. Strewn? In fact, I don’t think I’ll keep most of the pictures I’ve got of myself on there.

I don’t mind telling you anything and everything on this blog. (I guess I do mind; I’m battling with myself all the time about what ought to go here). The thing about this blog is that it’s on my own website, and that I don’t even use my name. If this isn’t your first time on this site, you probably know my name. But it’s different hiding behind a moniker somehow. The Facebook page is under my name, and there are certain attributes you are supposed to share with everyone to form the portrait of who you are. Maybe that’s it; that’s what I hate. I prefer the open-ended essay to the guided Q and A.

No, I don’t just prefer the open-ended nature of a blog. I despise how a site like Facebook seeks to define me by a tidy set of questions and a row of pictures.

I look at the new Facebook, and I feel like Facebook is encouraging me to be a narcissist. Look at me! Look at everything about me! Frankly, a lot of times, I really can’t stand me, and Facebook doesn’t seem to get that. Perhaps today, I just want my name and my picture and brief statement that says, “That’s it.”

..

Alas, most people I know communicate via this hideous tool, so if I am to remain even the slightest bit of a social being, I need to use it.

..

You know what it is? Facebook amplifies your life…and they probably would love that as slogan. It’s wonderful if things are going pretty well for you…you can share how well everything is going, and you can marinate in it, and everyone you know can join you… But if things are not going so well…well, it’s not exactly amplified…Facebook pages rarely turn into portraits of doom and gloom…there’s the facade of a happy person with good stuff going on…look–pets, job, good college, smiling in all these pictures, all sorts of amusing interests… It’s just not an accurate representation of life…for ME…it’s not. My Facebook profile seems like it belongs to someone else. It’s not the same person who hates getting out of bed every morning and hates going to sleep because he dreads that next morning.

..

Have you ever seen a Facebook page that just screamed out to you,

Of course not. Nobody would “friend” such a person. Nobody with 847 friends says shit like that.

No, I don’t need or want 847 friends. But I certainly don’t have 179 or whatever Facebook says I’ve got. Yes, I know I have friends. At the moment, I’m just saying…

…I have no conclusion. I forgot what my original point was. I’ve just been typing…and it’s been mostly garbage…and I don’t care…see…I don’t need to worry about “what not to say on Facebook” or that I’m being one of the “10 types of friends on Facebook that annoy you”…I should get some sleep…