Thanks to my power juice, and rest, and lots of reading, I think my bout of the crud is on the way out.
I felt energetic enough this afternoon to go to Wegmans and re-stock the fruits and veggies.
In the Nature’s Marketplace section I ran into one of my friends and yoga students and people I follow on Facebook.
It was weird because even though I have only been “off Facebook” for one day, when I saw this person, I wondered: Is there anything up with him that he expects me to be “up on?”
What if he had posted something momentous and expected me to know about it? And what if my not mentioning it would lead him to think that I didn’t care about his momentous thing?
(Holy shit. Facebook is complicated.)
I knew that somewhere in our conversation I needed to tell him that I was on a media fast and was not going to check Facebook for this week, just so he wouldn’t think I was ignoring his momentous thing.
(Not that he posted a momentous thing, but just in case.)
My confession of my media fast, turned into a very interesting exchange about how all this social media has changed out interactions with one another.
I made him swear that he wouldn’t go home and report that he had seen me in the canola oil aisle at Wegmans. (He promised, but of course there is not way for me to check on this unless I cheat and go on Facebook tonight, which I am not going to do.)
But it made me think that this was what I really LIKE about Facebook. I like it when I run into someone at Wegmans, whose life I follow on Facebook, that we can engage each other from a place of already knowing “the backstory” of at least some aspect of each other’s lives.
Because when you don’t keep up with people on social media and you run into them, your interchange tends to be of the “Hi, how ya doin'” variety and it just ends there.
But if you know that they have just come back from a trip or are putting an addition on their house, or whatever, you can then engage them more meaningfully, and maybe say: Hey, that addition is really super!”
And I like that.
What I don’t like about Facebook is that it sucks me down into itself for longer than I would like, and when I I finally re-surface, the time that I would have to liked to have spent reading or cleaning or or moving my many on-going projects forward, has been frittered away on Facebook.
And that makes me cranky.
It’s something I have to figure out.
Inspiration Location 
“Facebook is complicated” – very true. Loved this post.
LikeLike
Thanks! Loved seeing you today!
LikeLike
Yes!! Facebook does have its blessings, but it a time suck, to be sure. I get criticized frequently for being “behind.” Sometimes I’ll just get a “look” (you know, the sarcastic, I-can’t-believe-you-didn’t-know-that-you-are-so-annoying look), but sometimes someone will give me the look AND say “I posted that on Facebook two weeks ago. Where have you been?” Well, ex-cuuuuuuuse me!
If you figure it out, oh sage yogamama, please do let us know!
LikeLike
Great reflection on the Facebook versus real-life conundrum. One of my coworkers (who doesn’t have FB) called a friend to catch up, and the friend was like, “I have a lot going on in my life right now; it’s all on Facebook. So if you want to know how I am, please get on Facebook already.”
I have faced similar run-ins like yours, but in my cases I have blocked the particular person. So while I AM checking Facebook, I never see their updates and have to make up some excuse about not knowing their “story.”
LikeLike
That’s why it’s more fulfilling to blog. I’m really enjoying this, both writing and reading blogs. I actually enjoy being out of the loop of facebook, even though I still spend plenty of time online.
LikeLike