Bad experiences with Facebook

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Has anyone else here found that Facebook can easily resemble being back in grade school, with popular kids and geeks etc.? There are those who everyone likes every comment they make, and then there's the dorks (like me) who basically get ignored as if they didn't say anything. Makes you glad to be decidedly antisocial in some ways. I have had positive responses from some genuinely good people on there, but there are also many that I with my social awkwardness just seem to rub the wrong way. As for the groups, those are best avoided at all costs. I once made the mistake of joining a group supposedly for Aspies, but I high tailed it out of there when the people turned out to be judgmental jerks who seemed to understand nothing about this disorder and the challenges it poses. I find the atmosphere on this board to be much more accepting and non-judgmental. On Facebook sometimes I feel like I am once again, the unpopular kid no one likes. Has anyone else experienced anything like this with Facebook?

Facebook has been a major source of stress for me recently too. I understand exactly what you mean in that it becomes a site where the identities which caused so much grief for me at school start to cement again. Lately I've been ruminating an awful lot because I thought I had escaped this in adulthood, yet it's come round full circle, and the one place I had used to be expressive is no longer safe for me.

For me the worst and most triggering moments are flame wars. In quick succession different dominant personalities with personal agendas begin firing comments at one another, or bouncing off each other's posts to do the who's in and who's out thing. I don't know whether everyone gets this with facebook, I had attributed this to my being in a once good peer support group which has tragically fallen in to a mire of bullying with a bunch of new folks anyway. Sometimes their motive is to specifically hurt and humiliate me. I posted a poem I had written and not long after one of my regular assailants posted a picture of a goat smiling at a camera with the caption "photogenic goat." This was after he had been objectifying me in other ways at the weekend. It's like being put in a cage.

I think the technology itself is conducive to miscommunication too. Because we are posting online and via a machine we cannot rely on paralinguistic cues to try and guess at the sentiment of what's being said. Often I struggle to distinguish the tone and feel someone is being sarcastic or offensive when they weren't or had made an earnest mistake.

Remember people often use the internet to relieve themselves of complicated feelings and can say things they didn't really mean. I know I do this myself a lot.

But I know what you mean about Facebook, it's become more hindrance than help to me, hence why I've just signed up here.

Much love
xo

sorry to hear of your bad experiences. Mine have not been that bad lately, no real aggression, just some people acting like I am a non-person compared to others for no apparent reason. That feeling is all too familiar to me from when I was growing up.On the other hand, some people are really kind and helpful, but sometimes the feeling of never fitting in just comes back to haunt me.

I haven't really encountered any problems with it. I mean I see status updates of people on my friends list not and then follow plenty of other random pages like band pages, or informative pages that post articles or info on concerts/albums coming out. And I also play a couple games on there...I don't really spend too much time talking to people on there, there are some people I chat with here and there though who I have known from a different site that doesn't exist anymore. Then people i know IRL just so there is that option for communication like if I can't get ahold of them by phone can always try facebook.

I have seen ignorant comments for some articles and things, and will post counter points to those sometimes...but mostly ignore any real drama as I don't care to get involved too much in that. I also don't really post a ton of stuff, upload pictures here and there and then youtube music videos and things on the internet I find intresting or funny.

My bad experiences with Facebook:

I had a guy post a indirect status about me because I'm "superficial" according to him.

There was an "ex-friend" as he describes me who would stalk me and see if I had unblocked him so he could message me threats to file me for harassment and negative stuff.

I remember when I was much younger, I followed those stupid arguments.

I see too many fake articles and lopsided opinions.

That's why i glad i don't have Facebook anymore (more like Bookface) because its cause me to get depressed when i looked at other people (friend list) picture of them smiling with their friends in random places. People on facebook ignore my posts also ignore my messages i send to them. I don't really see the point of using facebook if i have better things to do.

My bad experiences on facebook are where other people seem to add you and act friendly with you one moment. Then for some reason or another you get blocked and they don't say why.

I had one girl who I was rivals with in HS over some guy who was a no go. We reconnected on FB for a little while and things seemed to be great. Then she turned around and unfriended me the first time. I added her back and she agreed. The next thing I know is when I had tried to look up her address I was blocked. She boasted about blocking me too.

"Do you have her on your facebook. I blocked her on mine."

Then I have had it where I have posted on other people's posts and I get ignored.

I'm not on any "social" media/networking sites for some of the above reasons. All relationships on social media I've found to be shallow and pointless. I know it's the modern age etc blah blah blah, you should be on social media blah blah blah, but in the end the friendships I made there weren't very fulfilling in the long run because I never got to see any of them in real life, therefore (and for some other reasons) earlier this year I quit social media, hopefully for the last time.

Now I have to make friends in real life, which may be harder, but, ultimately more fulfilling in the long run, in my opinion.

I hate facebook, just despise it. I only have it because I moved across the world and it is the easiest way to keep up with my friends and family so far away.

Some don't like Facebook becuase people might not want to contact you.
I don't like Facebook becuase someone might want to contact me.



Take it from someone who knows Facebook is a massive data mining exercise. If you are business you probably should use it, if you are an individual probably not.

I can empathize with your dispiriting experiences with being on fb and deleted it recently after 3 years on it. I sensed commenting and messaging this was another of those situations with an awkward or distant vibe where the effort to be supportive and stay in touch was not reciprocal.

The impression I got was that I was part of their past or a lost cause and they had moved on. I think what rainbow justice said was right on the money about reviving and cementing old juvenile social patterns.

The main reason for me to consider the negative side facebook as not worth it is the fact that I have in fact run into several friends on Facebook in real life that I used to know.
The run ins were always as if we'd never even met one another and they've avoided me and looked embarrassed or annoyed.I decided to be 'true to the situation' and not use it as a shiny 2D backdrop to distract from the apathetic dreary world of everyday reality.

Yes, I am pretty fed up with Facebook and "friends" as a whole right now. Tired of some who I thought were my friends constantly posting things such as "stop posting negative things, blah, blah, blah" without mentioning names…yet, they have told me in person I need to "lighten up". Funny, these are the same people who have been through 2 divorces while I have known them, always blaming the man and I was there and NEVER judged them (ps they are close to marriage number 5-6)…another who is both gay and of a different religion, people have not always supported them and yet there I was, always a friend, always willing to listen to the good and bad and supporting them while others walked away…another who divorced, her ex blames them for the attempted suicide of their child, they cheated on their spouse, everyone turned on them and yup, there I was listening to their sorrow without judging them…So I decide to say fine, I will stop any of my FB posts from reaching you and then they start questioning where the heck I have been…or why I AM SO MEAN and CRAZY and CRUEL to leave them out of the newsfeed…what?

Sorry, I just do NOT understand these people anymore. It breaks my heart to have spent so many years supporting people whom cannot possibly see the tremendous amount of pain I have had to deal with over the last few years…just amazing.

And I won't even get into those who are constantly talking about how "fake" people are, how they are your friends but NEVER take the time to call, write, etc. just to see how you are, but see no problem when they THEMSELVES do it…then when you take them off your newsfeed, once again, you are misinterpreting them and not being fair.

So yes, I get it. Hugs to you.

I've found that whenever I write something, nobody hardly likes or comments. I don't write many comments any more, but if I do it's usually something worth reading, but I don't seem to get 1 like or 1 comment. But when others put something, whatever it may be (even if it's something uninteresting), they get at least 1 like and all these comments from different people. There's this guy I have on Facebook who seems very Aspie to me, but he is literally always posting whatever's on the top of his head, even I get fed up with seeing all these posts. But he still seems to get likes and sometimes a few comments, more so than me. I just don't get it. I do like other people's posts and I'll comment if it's something I agree on or whatever. So it's not like I don't bother with them.

I do hate it when women put ''hun'' when commenting on another woman's post. Just gets on my nerves.

Maybe what you are posting is not shallow or stupid enough for FB "Likes." Also, people probably "Like" stuff just because they like the person who posted it, not because that person posted something notable. It's another popularity contest.

Facebook IS a bad experience! I've had nothing good to say about it since I first heard that idiotic name!! It has NO value whatsoever!! !

Ok, now that I've gotten that outta my system...

I'm not gonna bother listing all the reasons I hate it... that would take forever. But I would like to relate an anecdote that illustrates my disdain. A friend of mine once started an account solely for the purposes of seeing photos of her granddaughter. But once she joined, suddenly all these long-lost friends started coming out of the woodwork. So she wrote to every one of them, saying "if you'd like to keep in touch, here's my email and my phone #. Don't FB me, because I don't check that." Anyway, nobody contacted her after that, save one--a distant relative who wanted a favor from her. So she did the favor and never heard from that person again. Do y'all see what I'm getting at here? Nobody wants to be a friend, people just wanna have "friends." She subsequently decided it was too much BS to take and closed her account. Very wise indeed.

I just deleted my Facebook account a few days ago. It was boring; I never gained anything from using it; and it just left me with irrational feelings of jealousy over how much more socially successful other people were.