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Returning to social media


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About 6 years ago, right around the time my oldest daughter was born or a little before, I got rid of Facebook. I had really good reasons for doing it, and for the most part I’m really glad I’m not on. I don’t miss the pettiness, the stupidity, and I’m SUPER glad I missed almost all of Trump on social media. The one downside is that it cut all of my old friends out of my life, and taking a break from everyone socially has made me realize that I still care more for some of those people than the people currently in my life.

Now, some of them I could contact through other means - but I’ve switched phones and email addresses over the past decade, so most of them can only be reached by doing Facebook or, in some cases, Twitter.

But, at the same time, I don’t want to spend time on Facebook. I don’t want to see people who are already in my life, I don’t want to deal with family crap, and I like having to actually talk to people to hear about their lives instead of seeing it all on Facebook.

I downloaded the app and came close to setting up a new account a couple times, but keep stopping at the final screen. 
 

Just writing this makes me realize that I’m better off without it, even if it means cutting off a portion of my past. But, man, it sucks that is has to be that way.

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Wally runs a fun, dank meme and chat group which is probably the only good thing other than the Marketplace on Facebook. Even that wasn’t enough to keep me tho. I deleted like everyone except my immediate fam and my Nightly / Wally’s group friends, thinking I could just keep going on the Book that way, but I just couldn’t. The account is active but that is just for my kids and wife really to read all the stories I recited about them on my wall.

But anyway, Wally’s group is basically Lando and this should make everyone laugh and feel old but my oldest son is an admin in that group. See what y’all did?! Backs of Hands totally did have an effect on him. ;-)

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I went back to Facebook with a brand new profile last September after taking two years off. And I’m actually glad I did. I don’t know if it’s my attitude or my careful friend cultivation, but it’s been huge in getting me through being an invalid for the past year.

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I have to use Facebook. Part of it was for my job (It was way easier to communicate with parents through Facebook for questions than through the dumb app the school offered) and I run our Church's page so I have to post events and stuff and daily Bible verses with a devotional. 

That being said a lot of my family left Facebook and I actually miss seeing pictures of them but I love seeing all my friends from nightly.net on it. 

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  • 1 month later...

I ended up going back, with pretty serious rules.

If you're someone currently in my life, we're not friends on Facebook.

If I'm related to you, we're not friends on Facebook.

If you're an old friend that I've lost touch with and actually care about, we'll be friends on Facebook.

No app. No groups. Just a few friends from the past, mostly from high school.  No other connections. If I find I'm checking it every day, without a good reason, I'm deleting the account.  If I start to get emotional because of it, I'm deleting the account. That includes letting idiots make me feel angry, but hopefully that won't happen because the list of friends is so small.

I've already connected with one friend and we're going to do a hike together sometime soon. So that was awesome. He was one of my best friends in high school, but we drifted apart in our 20s, through no real fault of anyone. But I'm glad to reconnect. We still have a lot in common, and spent a good amount of time talking about camping and hiking and how we both love living in the city but also need to get out and reconnect with nature for extended periods. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Things have been going well. I’m on a couple times a week, and I’ve really helped some people just by reaching out to them. Keeping the friends list tiny means that each person has value and I can check on them. And I’ve heard a lot about how lonely and disconnected people are, when they get past the surface and into the real nitty gritty, so I’m glad I’m able to help in some small way.

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