i blame the world

[seperis]

So after falling asleep unexpectedly rather early yesterday, it is five and I'm awake. Again.

There is nothing decent about five AM, I'm just saying. But that is not what I want to talk about. Today, I'd like to talk about a little known danger of the internet age which I feel that someone, somewhere, should have warned me about. Facebook insomnia.

We all know the dangers inherent in drunk dialing, and then there was drunk posting, and always there is insomnial posting, but I didn't realize there was also insomnial friending, when two in the morning you are--God help you--staring at your facebook and realize, a.) oh God you hate that thing so much it hurts you inside, delete it! and instead you, b.) friend people you know, even if you hate them.

There's just something horrible about staring at your sudden spate of facebook activity and realize, holy shit, what was I thinking?

THen? THEN? THEY FRIEND YOU BACK AND TALK TO YOU. HOLY FUCK WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Also, it's been fifteen, thirteen, ten years. And Facebook is not a medium one uses to break down their lives. Also, some of them I didn't hate, but then I found two exes and that was kind of funny, and also, what was I thinking?

I blame winterlive for abandoning me to die.

That is all. God help me. No one warned me of insomnial facebooking.

Also, it is nearly six am and I don't think there's enough coffee in the world to deal with this.

Comments

[mizubyte.livejournal.com]

personally my favourite thing is to wake up the next morning and realize you drunk facebook friended someone you met at a club/bar/street. woohoo. :-)

[seperis.livejournal.com]

Holy God. *sends support* Yeah. That would be--yeah. I'm just barely hanging on from dragging in work people. Barely.

[ms-artisan.livejournal.com]

Ha! If I weren't in as far away a timezone as it's possible to be and still be on the same planet, I would have been blaming the world at the exact same moment you were.

5am logic can make that work. Honest.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*hee* Yes. This.

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, now you know my daily joy of being awake at 5am. *pats you* There's nothing quite as vile, is there?

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*shares your pain*

[transtempts.livejournal.com]

*nods*

*hands you a pillow*

[akacat]

I only just signed up for Facebook last month. While roaming around looking for anyone I might remember from HS, I ran across my first husband.

Ack.

*Not* someone I want to talk to. Ever.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*shivers* Oh man, my sympathies!

[akacat]

Thank you! I'm really hoping that he doesn't notice I've signed up. Ew. Do not want.

[lexstar29.livejournal.com]

I agree with this post more than you can know!

The friending of people you've not seen for years and would still walk away from if you saw them in the street. And the person that friends you which you feel is secretly a bad omen as they are the proverbial bad penny in your life!

Also, stay away from the games. It's a good way to ensure you're up way past when you should have been asleep, because you're waiting for energy to refresh so you can level up. Then you think, but it's only a game...and not one I care about, but still that can't stop you. Before you know it it's 1am and you need to be up in 5 hours.

I say delete your recent activity log and repress and deny...it always works for me.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I am a huge fan of denial.

....I have this bad feeling that I don't remember everyone I sent a friend request to. It makes me afraid.

[cincodemaygirl.livejournal.com]

I wish I had never signed up for that stupid thing, ugh. Facebook, bah.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

I know. *bitter* I feel your pain.

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

What is the etiquette for "friending" people on Facebook?

I was happy to see a photo of an old friend with whom I've lost touch and delighted in reading two sentence updates of his travels with his family, but then somehow, an ex-roomate who lives here in town found me and I thought, well, I suppose she's a friend. She invited me to her wedding, 8 years ago, after all, though we've spoken only once since, when we showed up for Jury Duty at the same time (that was startling) so I made the mistake of accepting her and from there Facebook decided that I wanted all of the old college gang, including the women who called me names for the heinous crime of dating more than one person at a time, and the ex who was really quite unpleasant after I walked away from him and ...

Ick.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

See, that's the thing. With facebook, I can't figure that out. It feel subtly differnet from LJ friending, in that way that feels entirely wrong.

I think niqaeli called it the bastard child of twitter and myspace or lj or something, and that? So true.

[jenna-thorn.livejournal.com]

Exactly. It doesn't really lend itself to conversations of any more depth than single sentences shouted over the noisy background music at the local bar. Which may actually be the appeal, I don't know. You can nod at arm's length at all those people and get a one sentence update about what they are doing without actually having to talk to them. Maybe if I'd liked meat markets more, I'd get FaceBook at a more visceral level.

Well, and all the damn games with requests to add download stuff and poker chips and farm animals and dresses and aigh! I feel guilty about ignoring four million requests to join Farmsville or trade dresses or help someone with Pennsic packing (no, seriously) but actually downloading the crap? Locked up my laptop with some virus for two weeks until I could run repeated virus cleaners. The games aren't fun, they're just guilt.

So I'm avoiding logging on and instead reading Textsfromlastnight after I read LJ and DW.

[shinetheway.livejournal.com]

It's RL. That's inherently wrong. [cocoons self in the warm protectiveness of fandom]

Seriously, I would facebook more except that everyone I currently have friended on facebook is either a) a relative, b) someone that I live with, c) an actual person-that-I-hang-out-with-regularly and therefore get all the necessary gossip from live, or d) a complete fucking stranger. (I only have a couple of those, and I did them on purpose--don't ask why. I don't remember. But if it helps, I was sober.) For the most part, either my school friends aren't facebook-savvy or I haven't found them yet, so my wow-haven't-seen-you-for-fifteen-years-who-are-you-again? category is very small.

Facebook should also start that google mail thing where you have to answer math questions to post between midnight and 6am. You wouldn't BELIEVE the amount of drama I've seen my friends go through with late-night drunken posting. [grins]

[lurkerlynne.livejournal.com]

Google asks you math questions to post in the small hours?

Good god, I could be completely sober and awake and still not be able to post!

[shinetheway.livejournal.com]

Googlemail has a option for it--you can program it for the time you want, and you have to answer three very basic math questions (like 11 plus 47) in sixty seconds in order to post, and therefore theoretically if you are drunk or asleep or possessed by demons, you can't send pathetic take-me-back emails to your ex-girlfriend. Human civilization is amazing, yes? [grins]

[niqaeli]

Bastard child of twitter and lj, I think. I was specifically referencing the wall functionality and how it's like the bastard child of twitter and lj threading only, you know, not as functional or intuitive as either.

There's a reason I spend most of my time ignoring my facebook!

[lillian13.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'll friend you and we can mock everyone else. :-D

[lanning.livejournal.com]

You are a braver woman than I am. I wouldn't touch Facebook with a barge pole. A steel barge pole. With, um, spikes.

*imagines having contact with high school people and shudders*

[fyrdrakken]

So I passed out around 10pm last night, woke up at maybe 2:30am, got up to check and make sure my internetz connection hadn't died and halted my ongoing Torrents again, and somehow blew an hour and a half on a site where one breeds virtual My Little Ponies. Then I headed for the bathroom to get ready for "bed" (being a 2-hour nap at that point), made another pony-related decision while brushing my teeth, and wound up not hitting the sack till 5am. With an hour till my alarm went off.

I think I may have you topped in terms of wee hours time-wasting this morning.

ETA: OTOH, I don't have a Facebook account, and have refused to get one despite the application coming pre-installed on my Blackberry and one of my oldest friends having signed up and sent me an invite. I think blinging out brightly colored pixel ponies is probably a more wholesome use of my internetz time.

[starcrossedgirl.livejournal.com]

Only further proof in my opinion that facebook is the work of the devil. ;)

Hope the coffee was helpful in the end!

[mneiai.livejournal.com]

Man, and then if you UNFRIEND them you seem petty. People just shouldn't be allowed near technology when drunk. It should be a rule. Nothing more advanced than a typewriter.

[zelda-zee.livejournal.com]

I recently joined FB to keep up w/a few friends, and then the mean girls from my high school found me and friended me and I was like WTF? Why would I want to be friends with them now based on our total lack of relationship then? Bizarre. I ignored them all. I guess the whole point of FB is to have a gajillion friends, but I'm leery of letting just anyone into my life, even if it's just on FB.

[winterlive.livejournal.com]

HEY. I WAS TIRED.

[beadattitude.livejournal.com]

Once again, I stop by to point, laugh and show you the college roommate who hasn't spoken to me in twenty-five years and yet still friended me, plus all her posse of Conservative Christian buddies who also friended me and must think, "Oh my, what happened to that nice quiet preacher's kid we went to school with? Besides marrying a Yankee."

Either they start talking to you or they stand silently and spookily by, judging you and waiting to strike, like freaking children of the corn or something. WHY LOOK ME UP IF YOU'RE GOING TO SHUN ME?

[tricksterquinn.livejournal.com]

Oh man. I am about to have a big defriending party, in which I axe all the people I added upon initially joining before I decided to STOP THAT. Like anyone from HS.

Except my worst is the people who are nice kids! and sweet! and I don't *dis*like! I just don't want their world to exist as part of mine. (wow, does THAT sum up my feelings on where I grew up)