My seven days away from Facebook

When I disabled my Facebook account a week ago, I thought I was going to be away for a good amount of time, like a month.  Who knows, I may just turn around randomly and disable it again.

You could say I was stuck like glue to Facebook.  What's happening right now?!  Did anyone see my post?  Did my friend respond to that message?

Seriously, I was driving myself crazy and all I wanted was to feel connected to someone so I wouldn't have to feel so alone.  But being obsessed with Facebook actually made me feel more lonely than I realized and it created so much "noise" that I wasn't exactly paying attention to important things like my recovery or spending time with John or having a friend over to watch a movie.  You know, connecting with real people and myself.

I posted yesterday how I'm so ready kick ED's ass and I couldn't not share it even if no one was going to respond to it.  I'm taking Facebook like a grain of salt now.  You want to be my friend?  Cool.  You want to unfriend me?  Fine.  Until you tell me to my face we aren't friends or that I did something that offended you, I'm going on like everything is peachy keen.  Facebook isn't real.  It's this made up place where we all come to see how popular we are or to find out who our real friends are.

Guess what?  Finding out who your real friends are is by inviting them to coffee or to go shopping, texting them to see if they're doing okay, calling them (if you're a phone person) to just shoot the breeze. I'm not saying you can't still converse with people on Facebook and have them be real friends, but don't get so wrapped up in a virtual reality that you forget to live your real one.

Out of sight, out of mind

Today I'm disabling Facebook.  I'm pretty sure I'll go back to social media, but for right now I need distance and quiet.  Facebook tends to get rather loud and I think I've had my fill of all the noise.  Thank you to those who have asked how to keep in touch during my social media hiatus.

One thing that is going to happen is my social circle will shrink considerably.  I will be out of sight and out of mind of all my "friends".  I'm not trying to be mean about it, but there are people on everyone's friends list that don't ever talk to each other.  In fact, I've stopped saying happy birthday to people because it just seems so fake.  I'm going to learn rather quickly who are my real friends...and that scares me...there won't be many.

You may not know this about me, but I'm not popular.  Never was and I never will be.  It's just not in the cards.  People have shown concern with the car accident and going through treatment and now my road to recovery, but in a sense I made you pay attention to me.  You wouldn't have looked over to see what I was up to if I hadn't said anything.  If I quietly excuse myself from the room no one is going to realize I left.  It's happened to me on so many occasions, it's almost funny.  It's like I have a superpower of invisibility.  I know I blend into the wallpaper and there are times I've tried changing my pattern so someone can actually see me, but it doesn't really work.

People aren't attracted to me.  There is nothing about me that makes someone take a second glance (or even a first one, if we're being honest).  Part of that is my own doing because of my social phobia.  People make me uncomfortable and I do whatever it takes to not be around strangers.  I'd rather be at the zoo learning how to communicate with all the exotic animals than try to figure out if I'm actually friends with someone or not.  And that happens frequently.  I've met a lot of people through theatre, but who the hell knows if we're actually friends or if they even like me (and if you're wondering, I admire a lot of the theatre folk I've met along the way).  Come on, we're actors and we all have egos so let's make sure we have enough people to talk to and make sure we're talented, boost our confidence, it's like a test of worthiness.

So once I disable Facebook, I won't hear from a lot of people and I have to be ready for that.  Don't get me wrong it's not like I won't reach out to the people who I think are my friends, but the return rate in responses have always been rather low...  I have to be ready for that too.

As we've learned from Frozen, I'm going to let it go and focus on what's important.