Facebook and Filters

I have a tendency to share too much, be too honest, and talk too loud.  I can’t help myself. It’s like the filter between my head and my mouth is never quite fully functioning.  It’s gotten me in trouble. My family, to this day casually refers to me as “the rude one”.  I told my sister once that I was verbally diabetic and that I could not sugar-coat my words. I thought it was funny. She did not. 

This Facebook thing is not working out too well for me. I don’t like all these people being able to see my private life and keep tabs on me.  Plus, I have to work extra hard filtering and that doesn’t come easy for me even on a good day.  I started facebooking to keep in contact with a couple of my friends who have moved away and to follow a couple of writers I like.  That’s it. But it snowballed into something more, as these things usually do. What I’ve noticed is that Facebook has a lot of “fluff”. (That’s what my sister decided to call it, after she told me I might be incapable of “fluff”), meaning its like reality TV. You get to pretend to be whoever you want and write whatever you want and pretend that is the real you. Ugh! I hate it, I want to leave comments on peoples pages saying “You’re such a fake.” And “Go to hell!” (When I see it in writing…I think maybe I am “the rude one”). But I don’t leave comments like that. Instead I decided to be proactive and I deleted about two-thirds of my “friends”. It’s rude-or so I’ve been led to believe. But, the unlucky recipient of an unfriending doesn’t get an email saying “Uh-oh, so-and-so doesn’t want to be friends with you anymore!” So, I doubt most people will even notice, thus it’s not that rude.  Of course if you’re me and your filter isn’t always charged you may run into one of these unfriended people at the grocery store.  She works there. We’re acquaintances. We don’t do things together. We don’t talk on the phone. I used to work with her now ex-husband. Anyway, I ran into her at the store and was being friendly.  I almost called her Mrs. (married name). Then I thought better of it. I didn’t know if she was keeping her married name or not. So I asked casually, “So what’s your last name now?” Her reply was “I took my maiden name back. Why, did you see on facebook that I changed my last name and have a new boyfriend?” To which I replied “No, I unfriended you.”  AAaaaack! I can’t believe I said that out loud. Since I was already sounding like a bitch I decided to jump in completely and get my hair wet. “But don’t feel bad I unfriended a lot of people and most of my family, too.”

Don’t worry we’re still acquaintances. We’re still friendly. She doesn’t charge me extra for any of my groceries. (I checked.)