Facebook Frenzy | Audrey Biloon

Dear Jack,

I just received your Facebook friend request and although I‘d really like to confirm it, because I don’t want to be responsible for any possibilities of your inferiority complex and ongoing psych bills, I have to decline. That said, let me explain my problem.

Truth to tell (which, if you’re running for office, is all relative and if you’re a voter, which means the rest of us, means that we should be running the other way from what goes for political truth), I don’t go on Facebook except to look for lost friends… and while I’m there, to check on what people are posting, which is hard to find since every other post is an ad for something.

I think the last time (before seeing your friend request just now) I went on Facebook was about two years ago, when, inadvertently, I found some information from a friend’s daughter (who or is that whom I wasn’t looking for. As you can see, I’m still working on grammar so who has time for Facebook?) about her mother (who -or whom- I also wasn’t looking for) and her mother’s death (which -or that- I certainly wasn’t looking for). Suffice it to say that I hadn’t heard about her mother’s death and could have felt terrible that I missed the funeral. And who needs to feel terrible about a funeral I wouldn’t have attended because I’d lost touch with her mother about our dogs who didn’t like each other. The moral of that story is that if we would listen to our dogs, rather than our own wishful thinking, we’d know not to get involved with some people in the first place whose dogs don’t like our dogs, so that we wouldn’t have to feel terrible about not knowing about the funeral we wouldn’t have gone to, in the second place.

The other point of that story is if you want to get lost, I can try to find you through Facebook or, if you’re planning on dying, please let a relative, who or whom I don’t know, know so that the relative can tell me in time to get to the funeral or can tell me too late to attend so that I can feel terrible for not attending and for not friending you on Facebook in the second place, especially since you like my dog, in the first place. Of course, for those of us who have dogs, that would be in the fourteenth place and in the seventh place.

That said, since I know where you are and since you like my dog, all of that looking would be silly….which proves once again that, without a nine-year-old to navigate me through the social media maze,
I’m a silly goose who gets confused as to how it all works, what the little icons mean, and how to post and respond.

Plus, the kicker is that when I’ve tried to post something on Facebook, there’s always someone who comments in an ugly way, either on what I’ve posted or what someone else posted about what I‘ve posted, as if none of those people has a life except to keep up mean spirited exchanges, all of which makes me wonder what people like that are doing on Facebook rather than fist fighting on the Jerry Springer Show.

I dunno…maybe I just get confused on Facebook, while others always seem to breeze through, because I was absent from elementary school that day. Then again, if you believe that I was in elementary school, when Facebook became a phenomenon, you may need a nine year old to help you use your mobile phone to talk to me in person about some waterfront property I have in Arizona with oil gushing on it, that you might want to buy.

Speaking of oil rich, desert property (although, technically, we weren’t actually speaking about since we’re both just learning to use the hello and goodbye features on our fancy cell phones) reminds me of the ridiculous number of ads on Facebook and wondering, if I were to became proficient on Facebook, whether I could advertise the oxymoronic property there so that some moron who posts mean spirited comments might bite and buy it.

Excuse me, while I sign off, for now, to find a nine-year-old, elementary school dropout, who will become a zillionaire by starting a company to help the social media challenged, like me (or is that, like I -as in like I am guilty of…..but we won’t go there until I talk to a lawyer) navigate Facebook, after which I’ll be right back to answer your friend request and to post that ad.

Love,

Audrey

Having been a teacher, social worker, lawyer, writer, and radio show host(ess), Audrey is now continuing to write, playing at improv comedy, and exploring other activities that can turn stress into joy and laughter.