On Facebook

Several weeks ago I deleted my Facebook account. A former co-worker had invited me to join so that I could see the pictures of another former co-worker's children. And while they are very cute children, it didn't justify the time and attention it took to deal with it. I got a bunch of notifications that people wanted me to join this or that protest. Someone got hold of my password and made my friends miserable for a couple of days. I found that I had "friends" I didn't know because I was too polite to ignore "friend" requests. I thought it was pretty harmless. On the other hand, I didn't "friend" my nephew. What self-respecting college kid wants his aunt as a friend? And would I really want to know what he was doing?

But the last straw was when I received a birthday notification for one of the "friends" I didn't know. I thought, if I send this guy a birthday greeting, it's going to be weird. Not stalking, exactly, but not normal. So I deleted my account. I am now entirely friendless, except for the people who telephone me or email me or contact me in some normal way.

And once I watched The Social Network, I was glad I'd done it. What a miserable collection of dreadful people. How did Zuckerman get to college without someone explaining to him that when you go on a date, it's not all about you, or at least not if you want another date? And your SAT score is not the most important thing to talk about. I mean, J too got 1600 on the SAT, but we'd been married for 14 years before I found that out.