On Facebook, Voyeurism and Relationships

I think I might take a hiatus from facebook.

You may now peel yourself off the floor.

I will admit it: I love facebook, maybe a little too much. I love the convenience of writing on a friend’s wall and asking her what time I should come over for dinner on Friday. I love being able to quickly notify my friends of an upcoming event. I love being able to share a funny link with lots of people. I love being able to see my best friend’s photos of her son, without having to ask her to email me all 202 pictures – after she emails them to her mom, dad, husband, grandma and Aunt Betty – because we all know the mom of a 3-year-old doesn’t have time to email that many people.



And I love stalking. I will admit it: I am a facebook stalker. If you put it up for all the world to see, I am going to see it. I love finding out who is pregnant, who got engaged, who broke up, who bought a house, who ate roast beef for dinner. It’s voyeurism, people, and it’s quite entertaining.

But I certainly don’t want anyone peering in at me. Hypocritical? Yes. But I know how much I revel in knowing all about – and judging, yes, I’ll admit it – the lives of people I haven’t talked to in years, so why the heck would I want them doing the same to me?

Think about this way: Would you really send “Susie-Q-from-3rd-period-8th-grade-English-class” all 53 photos of your recent vacation? No. But she can see all the gory details, with captions, on your facebook page.

Or think about it this way: Do you really want to post on Tuesday about your new flat screen TV, only to post on Friday that you are headed out of town for the weekend? Let me just mosey on over to your “Info” tab, get your address, which you have kindly displayed for me, your “one-time-we-met-in-a-bar” acquaintance, and use all of this unsolicited information to procure a new boob tube, thankyouverymuch. Don’t worry, I’ll be sure to fertilize your alfalfa crop in Farmville as a thank you gift.

This is why my FB page is locked down. No one can see anything. Unless you are my friend, you will not know my “current city.” Not even “friends of friends” are looking at my photo albums, thanks to my privacy settings!

Even with my stringent privacy settings, I still try to be non-personal in the nature of my posts. I don’t have anything terribly revealing in the “About Me” section, and I haven’t filled out any of my interests, activities, etc.

The reason for this is the fact that I am “friends” with a lot of people I am not actually friends with in real life. Of the 386 people (small potatoes compared to some, I know) who can view my page, I probably actually talk to about 50 of them, if that. Most of my facebook friends’ numbers aren’t in my phone; in fact, their email addresses are not even in my contact list.
Which is the both the beauty and the detriment of facebook. I have enjoyed reconnecting with “old friends” and staying in touch with people I would have drifted away from otherwise. But it does make me wonder: If I didn’t take the time to stay in touch with them before, why do I want to find out what’s going on with them now? Is it because I care about them? Or is it just curiosity? I think we all know what the answer is about 90% of the time.

The same goes with people who want to “friend” me. Which makes me want to protect myself from people like, well, myself.

There are a few solutions: defriend everyone I am not in an actual relationship with or don’t post anything that I wouldn’t tell a stranger in the Home Depot checkout line. I try to go with the “stranger in the Home Depot” facebooking strategy, mostly because I feel like a mean person when I “ignore” “Susie-Q-from-3rd-period-8th-grade-English-class.” Which is actually an interesting concept. Why do I feel like a jerk for not being a “friend” to that person, when in reality I never was or stopped being their actual friend a long time ago and I never felt bad about that? I usually oblige their FB friend request, if I ever talked with that person and they didn’t annoy me too severely then. Unless they are the creepy, perv-ish father of a boy I went to 3rd grade with… then they automatically get the axe. Gross.

All of this facebooking has made me think about relationships. Why do some people want to share everything about their lives with almost total strangers? And why do people like me love knowing everything about those oversharing people’s lives without even having to enter into relationship with them?

I think it is two things:

1. We innately desire to be known and know others.

2. Relationships are hard.

Facebook is perfect for providing a false sense of intimacy. If you post something sad, your “friends” will leave comments to comfort you. If you post something happy, they will “like” your post. It gives a big payoff with little effort. I know my heart always skips a beat when I get a comment, and I get warm and fuzzy deep down when my clever and witty status update garners a bevy of admiring responses.

Facebook relationships are always easy, always positive. It is on your own terms. If you don’t want to talk with Billy today, you don’t go to his profile … or you go, but you don’t comment. And how often do you get in an argument on FB? Rarely, if ever. FB relationships are easy; they offer large returns on a little investment.

But at what expense? Are you really, truly being known or understood? Do you really, truly know and understand your “friends”?

I’ll leave you with this example. Last night I posted a facebook status based off a conversation that Steve and I had, after I showed him the facebook photos of a new baby (the son of a person I wouldn’t otherwise stay in touch with, ironically). You can read what happened next:

Please note that Anita is my husband’s aunt. Does she really think I would announce on Facebook news of that significance before I told the family? To her credit, it certainly wouldn’t be unheard of. Just last week one of my FB “friends” announced via “relationship status” change that she was getting divorced … before she told any of her family members in person. I am actually real life friends with one of her family members, who was shocked to find out via FB that her cousin was getting a divorce.
I don’t really have good way to sum this all up, other than to say that I am going to try to take a break from facebook and focus on my actual relationships. I don’t know how long I will be gone or how long it will last (no promises from this FB junkie) but I am interested to see what life is like without facebook.