Facebook

I just updated myself on Facebook and suddenly got 7 invites. Sheesh. Two were from Argentinian guys; why, I don't know. And one was from a woman in Australia. She looks rather cute but again, I don't know her so down the chute with her invite. Is this kind of blind inviting the norm at Facebook? What's the motivation?

If you are going to invite me, please make sure to identify yourself in some way if you think there's a chance I might not know or remember you. And there's a good chance I might not! My brain is like a Teflon-covered sieve these days. It's part of the reason I backed off blogging for a while. If I can't be sure of my facts, then my arguments are suspect, too, and then what's the point?

Don't expect me to keep up with the Facebook or do social networking or whatever through it. I think I've found the outer edges of my ability to adapt to a changing world and the e-social networking world is just past it. So are Flickr and Twitter. Too much personal information, all the time. Don't like it; don't want it.

I'm a huge loner (not an agoraphobe, mind you) and really don't care to socialise with you via these social networks. I was a loner pre-Internet and am still one today. Unless it's email or comments here. Those I love. They give you some immediacy but still leave room for consideration in response.

On the gripping hand, there's the cell phone. HATE THEM! I finally had to break down last Fall and get one. Can't stand it. For some reason, you can't lock the outside controls on mine and so I'm forever turning off the ringer or turning down the volume. I have to remember to bring it from my bedside at night to the desk or else it will stay in the bedroom until I remember to retrieve it. And I miss calls as a result. Grrr. Plus, now people know my phone is with me, so I am always reachable. Not answering cell calls is always seen as rude, instead of expecting an answer to whatever call is being made at whatever moment being seen as rude.

And DO NOT look for me to get a MySpace page. Jeez, but those are some godawful places. If you subscribe as I do to Ann Landers' Three Maxims for Conversation (Intelligent people discuss ideas and concepts. Average people discuss current events. Ignorant people discuss each other.) then it's hard to shake the belief that MySpace is a haven for the third kind of people.