When I signed up for Facebook a few years back, it asked me many personal questions. I thought these were simply part of the application process. Once I became a Facebook presence, to my surprise, all of that information was available to the world of my Facebook “friends”.
A quick retrenchment and obfuscation ensued because my Facebook “friends” are not really my friends, but a collection of people from the past to whom I longer spoke, some actual friends, former co-workers (I have 45 “friends” from People as People people are great joiners) and colleagues from business. In this way, it’s hard to know what to say. Can’t be bland. Can’t express the outer edges of my personality or even some of the less florid ones. So who am I there? And why express anything at all if I’m suddenly so self-conscious?
I solved this last month by deciding to be someone else, which I announced to my “friends” in a status update.
I changed my profession to cowboy and my sex to male and my place of residence to Wyoming. I left in place the fact that I am not in a relationship and am interested in men.
So now I am a gay cowboy who lives in Wyoming and whose quote is: “It’s all about branding.”
As a result, on the side of my Facebook page I get the most delightful advertisements: Gay dating services (where the men are considerably more attractive than dating services for women), cruise opportunities for the Caribbean where the men seem to spend all day in little but thongs or carefully draped towels, offers for tracts of land outside Casper, enticements to explore the world of mining.
I think this might confuse someone who thinks they know me and tries to “friend” me. But are they really my friends? Really?
Friend as a verb. Just thinking about it makes “friend” sound creepy.
Maybe I’ll change my Facebook profile today. I’m thinking of either a toll taker on the New Jersey Turnpike who likes Civil War re-enactments and Heavy Metal, or a plus-size lingerie designer who lives in Tokyo and is a fan of Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton.
Which do you prefer? Or suggest another.