He lives

I made my little-ballyhooed return to Facebook a couple weeks ago.  The response was as you might expect.  A couple of "He's alives!" and one "Rumors of Bone's demise were greatly exaggerated."

But alas, I'm no Facebook Jesus.  Or even a Facebook Paul McCartney.  If anything, I'm more of a Facebook Luke Spencer.  Good for a few one-liners, then mysteriously absent for months on end.  But always, beloved by all.  (Wow, that last line sounds a little tombstone-ish.  Eh, I'll never come up with anything better.  Go ahead and chisel me in.)

November 28, 2011.  That was the fateful day of my last Facebook status update.  I had posted the following: "Why does Yahoo weather say it's snowing here, but when I look out I don't see ANY?  Am I... wait for it...... snow blind?"

And then, nothing.  For nineteen months.  No likes.  No status updates.  No passive-aggressive "Don't you love when someone lies to your face."  No "Thank you all so much for the birthday wishes, I've never felt more loved (by people I barely know)."

Nineteen months with no Facebook gives a man a lot of time to think.  And tweet.  But mostly, tweet.

Since my unceremonious return, the two questions I get the most are: Why did you quit Facebook?  And why did you come back?  And, did you know your Dad has like a hundred more friends than you?  OK, so three questions.

To be honest, I have given almost no thought to the first question.  I mean, who has the time for such ponderings when you log in to see one of your high school friends (Axl) has changed his profile pic and underneath it you read "Your dad and twelve other people like this."  (Is that tombstone ready yet?)

Top of my head, a few things do come to mind which contributed to my hiatus.  They include, but are not limited to:  Political posts.  People who seem to be in some unannounced competition to make their life seem beyond perfect and better than everyone else's, especially when you talk to said person almost daily and they do nothing but gripe and complain about their life away from Facebook.  Also, it sometimes felt like a contest for likes and comments.

And don't get me started on the typos and misspelled words. My God, the misspelled words! My blood pressure goes up forty points just thinking about them.

But mainly, I think it comes down to the fact that I'm just not a very social person.  And it is, after all, a social networking site.  It was just too much.  I like my human interaction in small doses.

So why am I back?  I suppose I had contemplated returning for sometime.  But ultimately, the straw that broke the Facebook-less camel's back was a single, kind post by a sweet friend.  It reminded me that there were a lot of good, supportive friends there.  And that I shouldn't let the bad and annoying behavior of a few rob the rest of the world of my brilliant-in-my-own-mind, if sporadic, statuses. Besides, it's becoming pretty clear Facebook is part of my heritage.

I can easily see Dad and I having a Frank and George Costanza Festivus moment, only about Facebook:
"Bone, Facebook is your heritage. It's part of who you are!"
"That's why I hate it."

Don't get me wrong.  It's still way too much.  Do you realize some people post on Facebook four or five times a day?  Who has that kind of time???  I barely had time to score twelve thousand points last week in Words With Friends.

And can I just say, I think we're all overusing the "like" button a bit?

"My dog died."  47 likes.

"My kid's sick." 22 likes.

"Darrin lost his job today.  No idea how we're going to pay the rent next month." 6 likes.

And now we're liking comments, too?  You can even like your OWN comment (which I have done, on more than one occasion, if you're curious).  Next we'll be liking likes.  "Hey, I liked your last status update, why didn't you like my like?"  These are the important conversations I imagine people to have.

The other thing I would like to know is where are all these overly-friendly people in real life?  I mean, I'm driving and people are cutting me off and honking and giving unflattering hand gestures.  And nobody likes anything or anybody at work.  People are griping about their spouses or clients or co-workers.

But put these very same people on Facebook, and magically they turn into the world's largest support group.  How fortuitous, as I've been looking for a new support group since my Jason-Morgan-Dependency group fizzled out a few weeks ago.

I should invent an app.  It would work with your Facebook page to give your friends more options than just liking a post.  There could be a "sympathy" button.  A "love" button.  (Sounds kinda kinky.)  A "BO-RING!" button.  If a post gets 10 "borings" Facebook automatically deletes it.  And of course, the ever popular "My God, are you on Facebook 24/7!?!?" button (also known as the "you are posting excessively" button).

I'm serious about this!  I think I shall be googling "Designing Apps For Dummies" later today.

Game on, Zuckerberger.

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"Looking at pictures on Facebook / Of your ex-girlfriend / At three in the morning / Never helped anyone..."