Top 5 regrets after 2 years without Facebook

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:

1. 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.
2. LinkedIn had simply become a more reliable way to track down old friends and colleagues.
3. I no longer played the casual Zynga games on Facebook.  Apparently, I’m not the only one.
4. 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.
5. 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.

1. 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.
2. 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
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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!