Facebook makes me depressed...

Post Reply New Topic

The thing you have to remember about sites like Facebook, Reunion.com, Classmates.com, MySpace, etc., is that most people who post there only put their best aspects forward. No one wants to paint themselves in a negative manner. For instance, on Classmates.com, I put this as my bio:

I am a ten-time award winning graphics designer, working for one of the largest media organizations in the world, and have been in the newspaper business for over a decade and a half. I'e written 5 novels, over 120 short stories and news features. I currently live in ____________ with my husband of 16 years on a 161 acre estate out in the country. My two children are in college, etc. etc.

Sounds really good, right? Successful? Well....

Truth is, I could have said it this way:

I'm an award-winning graphics designer who makes roughly $15.00 an hour and living in a run-down 130-year-old farmhouse on a 161-acre farm that my husband inherited. Please ignore all the broken down barns, sheds and farm equipment in the yard. Ignore my piece of crap car, too. I've written 5 novels, BUT NONE PUBLISHED so far, and though I have published many short stories, the most I've made off a given story was $40.00. I've written hundreds of advertorials and news features, but guess what... Because I'm a graphics designer and NOT a journalist, I DIDN'T get a by-line on ANY of them. I'm a bitter 41 year old woman who hates having company over to the house and prefers to sit in a dark closet with headphones on when overstimulated. I take little or no comfort in the fact that compared to most people in 3rd world countries, I'm living high on the hog.

Now why wouldn't I post the 2nd paragraph on Facebook or Classmates.com? Because the truth is almost never palatable. Plus, the truth (in my case) is a bummer.

to be honest i feel the same

but what makes me okey is that i know i'm not reacting with them the right way

bye the way the facebook is not my favorit website

It pisses me off, you have friends on there who you think are your best friend and they don't list you as their top friend or coolest friend, Wa Wa Wa
Just kidding on that.
Facebook is hardly a judge of who's your friend, most of the people are acquaintances who you hardly know, and the stupid insipid applications they are always pushing you to share with your friends who you hardly know, come on people its a useless waste of time, that people with nothing better to do live their lives though. There are better things for people to do, facebook has become so boring to me, most of the people on there that I know never talk more then a couple of times since adding them, its not a community like WP where despite its faults and rants, is the funnest, and real places to be on the web for me.

Rainstorm, that post was brilliant ! !! !! !! !! !

I had a myspace for about a year and then I got so depressed I canceled it. I remember one person who seemed nice and interested in talking to me and I thought "hey that's cool, at least I made an online friend". But suddenly they seemed to lose interest and bumped me down the friends list and I noticed they'd make kinda sarcastic comments about bulletins I posted (like those 'get to know you' bulletins) and I guess it really got to me. Then another lady I made friends with on there, she was so out there that it was really dragging me down. I know....farbeit from me to call someone else weird! But she'd get mad if she didn't have all my attention all the time, and her husband came online after she was really nasty to me one night and told me she is probably bipolar because of her extreme ups and downs. I know sometimes things get to me too much, but it was like the straw that broke the camels back. I don't have any real friends here where I live, couldn't even seem to make them on there. So instead of just walking away for a bit I canceled it altogether and about a month later started a new one, and now I just check it every now and then because I still feel so depressed about it. It caught my eye to see this post because it was rather recent that I did all that.

I just wanted to say, Rainstorm that was a great post. I don't know why I find it so god-awful annoying to end up with someone on my friends list that is always posting "I'm so happy!" and putting smiley faces on their moods every day. I know, I sound very bitter and I'm not proud of that. But to see someone else live in a constant state of euphoria when I'm down in the crap every day is very depressing to me. BUT, I know that most of the time they're probably over-dramatizing their own lives. Why do I find this annoying? Because it's not truthful and I see no point in trying to make yourself into something you're not. I mean sure I could come one here every day and pretend like I'm the happiest person in the world but wouldn't that make me a liar? I feel like they're rubbing it in my face even though I'm sure that's not their intention. As mean as it is, though, there are days I'd just like to smack that smile off their face

No one ever does anything towards my Facebook profile! No wall posts, friend requests, or tagged pictures. I still check it about once a day, but it's just sort of a routine task. Like, I'll be bored and be like, "Ah, what the hell." *windows key, up arrow three times, enter, escape key like a million times because internet explorer won't stop navigating, tab key, URL, password* ... all for no new notifications.

In the UK, a similar (and much older) site to Facebook is Friends Reunited.

I signed up for it (with an alias) and was amazed at the stories my ex-classmates were posting. Even I realised most of the profiles were far from honest.

It would have been depressing if I'd hung around Friends Reunited too long.

I also hate communities like Facebook and MySpace.