876 Surprising Ways Facebook Makes You Wish Your Life Was As Cool As Mine

If I had a secretary I would ask him/her to get The Shmata Queen on the phone because this picture proves that Clevelanders have seen blue skies once.

But I don’t have a secretary so I’ll have to come up with other arrangements like writing a status update on Facebook asking if anyone could prove this picture wasn’t photoshopped.

That is assuming I didn’t write an update about the amazing meal/vacation/experience I just had.  Those of you who aren’t one of my Facebook friends are missing out on those, really you haven’t lived until you have been uplifted/amused/offended by one of my status updates.

Facebook Etiquette

I am not going to try to tell you how to use Facebook. That is not what this post is about, let’s leave it to the social media gurus.

Instead let me throw something out at you. Have you received friend requests that make you scratch your head? You know the one from the man/woman who you sort of knew in school.

You know that person you might have smiled or grunted at once.

Those people are pretty easy for me to deal with. If I was remotely curious about them I accept the request and later on I decide if I want to keep them around.

Most of the time I tell people from the office I prefer to keep work/personal life separate. If they give me any grief I explain that I am a swinger who likes animals and that I like sharing naked photos and videos.

You should hear the uncomfortable laughter that comes after I say that, especially when I tell them they haven’t lived until they have made love to a monkey.

And then there are the friend requests that come from the parents of my childrens’ friends. Sometimes I wonder if they are truly interested in being my friend or if they are just checking me out to make sure I am a suitable guardian for play dates when their kids come over.

I like to warn them I use Facebook as a place to share my fetishes and to show off my gun collection. Maybe that is why my kids are always invited to play at their friend’s homes and not ours. Hmm…

Facebook And Privacy

My good friend Mr. Zuckerberg has a very different idea of privacy. I don’t like his at all and the more  I see the less I like him. Take a gander at Facebook is trying to do with the newest iteration of their Android App and tell me it doesn’t make you wonder what the hell is going on there.

It is part of why I have a significant love/hate relationship with Facebook.

It has helped me reconnect with members of my extended family. It is unlikely I would know as much about my family in Israel as I do and it certainly helped strengthen connections with family members around the states.

I am grateful for that and appreciative of how it helped me reconnect with some friends from college I lost touch with.

But some of the other things make me less happy.

The privacy issues bother me. There is no reason for Facebook to have that much information about me. I am not that interesting.

I don’t like how every time they make a change it feels like I have to check my security settings to make sure they haven’t changed.

Not a big fan of Facebook suggesting who I might want to be friends with. If I am not connected with someone now it ninety-nine percent of the time it is because I have actively chosen not to.

Facebook & Children

Somewhere in the archives is a post I wrote about Facebook and children. I prefer my children stay off of it, mostly because I don’t want to have police their accounts.

That is not to say they can’t or won’t have accounts one day but I like them to keep their lives offline. While they are sorting through what is appropriate to share learning that what is cool at eight might not be cool at 14 it is easier to have a smaller digital footprint.

876 Surprising Ways Facebook Makes You Wish Your Life Was As Cool As Mine

That headline is me taking a poke at Upworthy headlines. I find much of their stuff to be obnoxious and  a bit preachy. However I keep hearing those headlines work so I figured I’d take a stab at it.

Oops, it is past midnight hear so I have to run I would hate to give Facebook a picture of my carriage turning into a pumpkin. Better for you all to think I am the coolest man ever.

So here is to fake status updates and sanitized profiles.