I opened an account on Facebook in 2005. Facebook launched in 2004. Facebook started as a rather clever way to date between college students. In 2005, I wasn’t in college. Far from it. But, I had figured out a way to join Facebook with my alumni email account and join in this online college party. I was no more creepy than Frank the Tank.
I loved the idea and experience of Facebook in the earlier days – and was fairly obsessed with social networking, while working on MSN Messenger. Like being iced, I marveled at Facebook’s popularity as it just continued to spread across the globe.
Two and a half years ago, a few months before getting married, I closed my account on Facebook. What?? Why would I quit Facebook? Some reasons I chose to close my account:
- I had been actively pursuing and talking with companies about new career opportunities. Despite my friends’ best photographic intentions, I didn’t believe that my skills in doing shots of lazy mules would improve my persona to recruiters.
- LinkedIn had simply become a more reliable way to track down old friends and colleagues.
- I no longer played the casual Zynga games on Facebook. Apparently, I’m not the only one.
- I’m comfortable reading the news on Google, MSN, or the Onion. I didn’t need a friend to tell me about the gentleman who won a banana.
- My status as ‘single’ was about to change. I now had an amazing wife who I could flirt with all day long in the real, offline world.
In late 2013, I no longer needed Facebook in my life. And, so I closed my account.
Rebirth
This year, on February 2nd, Groundhog’s Day, the greatest national holiday of the year, I re-activated my account. Fortunately, my 720 friends hadn’t given up on me! It was like they were patiently waiting for my return from exile.
(Naturally, I turned my account back on because February 2nd is my birthday.)
I wanted to receive hundreds of Happy Birthday wishes. As it turns out, most of my online friends didn’t know I had actually rejoined the comforting embrace of Facebook – and I only received a few well-meaning comments.
However, I refuse to despair.
In just over a month, I have received friend requests from over 75 people. Today, I’m convinced that I can attain the 1000 friends milestone if I push hard. Ever since elementary school, I’ve wanted to have 1000 really close and personal friends. Naturally, of the 75 new friends, only 6 appear to actually know me. The others are either lurking hackers named Boris, or folks looking to sell me something.
Regrets
In retrospective, here’s a short summary of what I missed while being away from Facebook for 2 1/2 years.
- Lots of invitations to parties. I mean, hundreds. Ok, actually, I think I only missed 1 invitation that I knowingly regret: a Runt show. I didn’t think my brother would forget to text me that his band was playing that Saturday night.
- I missed some very interesting real-time news and life events from friends. This includes dozens of marriages, divorces, and babies. Not in that order. But, I did receive most of that news, just not in the split second of a Facebook post. I did join in time to see this important movie from a good friend: The Maker
- Some great life events are captured in photos. This includes nieces and nephews growing up. Fortunately, my family has all moved to 23Snaps for sharing these pics. But I came alarmingly close to missing a life event from a friend wearing a bacon swimsuit.
- I miss updates from my friends living abroad. My only recourse is to actually reach out to these folks from time to time and connect. This takes a bit more effort than clicking a like button on my phone while standing in line at Safeway.
- I missed thousands of vacation photos from friends humble bragging and making me jealous. As a result, I will now try and out-do them, add noticeably more freckles, and humble brag back at them, both in person, and online.
Finally, I estimate that I missed over 1,830 birthdays while I was on hiatus from Facebook. Now that I’m back on Facebook, I need to start participating if I expect anyone to wish me a happy birthday next year. So to my 720 friends, including you Boris the hacker, Happy Birthday and sorry I missed your special day!