It seems it?s impossible these days to catch up with old friends, because in general, you are probably already caught up due to Facebook.
Implicit in this blessing is also the curse - it takes away things to talk about. So therefore, you talk about Facebook.
My friend Michael Zwaagstra, also a newspaper columnist, and I were visiting over some wings when the topic came up of what is too much for Facebook. On our BlackBerries we were able to pull up some recent posts of people we are ?friends? with.
Many posts reveal things that used to be between him or her and their diary. ?People put things on Facebook that you used to put between you and your diary,? Michael said.
He pointed out that people used to keep diaries to record what was precious to them. They would be hidden, secure refuges that you didn?t share with anyone. A diary was safe place to vent, to mourn, to struggle through personal issues, family struggles and all the tribulations of life
If someone were to read your diary without your permission, there would be an enormous sense of violation. Ask any teenage girl whose brother snuck a peek at her diary.
Why would you give permission to read your diary in the first place? Why wouldn?t you just tell them what you thought?
Now, we have a new diary; it?s called Facebook, and everyone has the key to its lock.
Reviewing some recent posts, we openly scoffed at some of the comments. Should we have? If we were the perfect, sensitive types, probably not. But being human, and more poignantly, men, we are by definition imperfect, and therefore found some entertainment. Perhaps if these comments were not posted on Facebook in the first place, there would be nothing to scoff at.
Don?t put anything on Facebook you?re not comfortable putting on the front page of a major newspaper, Michael said. Don?t rely on privacy settings to protect your emotions. In his deep baritone, voice he intoned, ?Facebook is not your private diary. Facebook is how you present yourself publicly to the rest of the world. Don?t put things on Facebook that you don?t want advertised to the entire world. It?s like being out on a public display. If you?re not comfortable with your boss reading it, don?t put it there.?
Indeed, there?s one person who I?ve continually that they should not be saying bad things about their job on Facebook. It?s a speed way to the unemployment line. Yet every week, he would say something that if he said it at the Christmas party, he would have been fired by Boxing Day.
Some of the things we were cracking jokes about were personal relationships going down in flames before our eyes, every detail blogged for humanity to see. It?s like watching someone who has soaked himself in gasoline striking a match.
Whatever happened to personal stoicism? Stiff upper lip and all that?
So in taking some humour in some of this self-immolation, perhaps on that level, we were not true friends in the conventionally defined notion of friendship. Rather we were Facebook ?friends,? who thought some people took wearing their hearts on their sleeves on the Internet way too far. And anyone who says they have not done the same is lying.
Oh, and just to put this in perspective, this is from a guy who?s been writing a column, often about his personal life, for 19 years. I?m just sayin.?
And in this case, I?m not sayin? it on Facebook.
? Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net
