Don’t’cha just love facebook? Don’t’cha???

I ‘joined’ facebook about 5 years ago when a mate told me he’d ‘posted some great pictures’.
‘Can’t you just send them to me?’ I asked. Like, email them? Print them and post them over?? (He lives in France). ‘No need! Its easy!! Just join Facebook. Its free!!’ Look, I’ll pay for the stamps then…

So I joined. Only took about 6 hours of intense questioning but eventually I ‘passed’ and was admitted to the world’s least exclusive club. I looked at the photo which, to be honest, wasn’t that great, and it was indeed singular. One fucking photo; 6 hours of my life wasted.

I then spent the next 3 years fighting off the Facebook Nazis with their incessant demands and threats. GIVE US YOUR EMAIL PASSWORD AND WE’LL FIND YOU ‘FRIENDS’. ‘DO YOU KNOW THIS PERSON?’ THESE PEOPLE WANT TO BE ‘FRIENDS’ WITH YOU.

Well they can all fuck off; I don’t want any friends; I’m happy on my own with stamp collection and bizarre assortment of girl’s panties stolen from washing lines.

Still they bombarded me. Incessantly. Its like a juggernaut. Which eventually, praise the Lord, subsided. Though I still got the odd message from them, ‘someone’s left you a message!!!!’ Which was normally an advert from Bangkok about getting a mail order bride or renting a ladyboy by the hour.

And of course I forgot my passwords. Used once, ate the paper it was written on and its over.

So a few months ago, someone else ‘needed’ me to go on F/b, so I got a new password and re-entered that part of the world that everyone else has been occupying for years. Me and my 6 ‘friends’. Do you suffer from ‘friend envy’?? I bet lots of kids do. And lots of ladyboys from Bangkok. But I don’t.

Because I’ve worked out the formula. For every ‘friend’ you have, you get 17 videos per day showing really cute puppies and adorable (ish) babies. You get 9 really sincere messages about God loving you and how a good friend (without the ” quotes) is worth six premiership clubs. And 14 posts about Donald Trump being a wanker. Which I heartily approve of. Not so much that I’d ‘like’ them in that official ‘like’ way, but just in the old fashioned, make-me-happy, kind’a way. The official ‘like’ is too big a commitment for me at the moment. I’m building up to it.

I have no idea how to make my own post. I find it all very opaque. I know, a 9 year old child could do it! Which I don’t doubt. But a 60 year old man (even one who looks much younger; honest) can’t. Isn’t even sure if he’s ready to bare his soul to a rag-tag bunch of screen-fixated strangers. I can’t even change my photo (Gareth Bale in a Spurs shirt). But I like it now; its ‘ironic’.

What you post says a lot about who you are. Which is why my younger daughter only posts about being drunk. Why Sizi posts about motor racing (its his job), and why most people post about lovely trees and gorgeous pets.

But what gets me most, what really makes me laugh more than even the ‘funny’ posts, is the amazing sincerity of the comments. “lovely picture!!!!’ means ‘you look dog ugly. “Oh, gorgeous dress!!!!”; your bum looks humungous. “Beautiful flowers!!!”; who gives a shit. “you are SOOOO talented”; way too much time on your hands.

Ok, must go see if I have any more ‘friends’, looking for number 7.

“Like!” Thursday

A xxxx