Facebook Foibles

Attended yet another ex-colleague's wedding dinner yesterday. Caught up with a bunch of ex-colleagues. They are all quite fun to talk to / socialize with. Not quite sure where I would rank them in terms of friendship (but then I have an anti-socialite's problem with the whole friend / acquaintance social definitions anyhow.)

All resulted in a vague feeling of unease that there was a very fun social network of gossip and news-trading that they had developed on Facebook that I was quite out of the loop on.

And so, just like instant messaging, my mind wanders around in a circle again, wondering if I should take the plunge where Facebook is concerned.

Problem is, along with some good, they all come with LOTS and LOTS of bads.

I did want instant messaging to be able to catch up with some of these folks. But then I run the risk of getting my extremely expensive computer infected by a virus or trojan which are running amok on such social networking sites, and I cannot trust my completely uncomputer savvy colleagues to keep their machines uncompromised.

Thumbdrive virii already give me nightmares. (An outsourced graphics contractor stuck a thumbdrive into my work computer for all of five seconds and promptly exposed it to no less than EIGHT trojans. Fortunately, there was a proactive virus scanner that was actually updated at the time (thank goodness for audits kicking our IT department into action) which blocked and quarantined them.)

There's the whole total lack of undisturbed computer time to boot, since some folks are bound to treat being visible and online on a messenger as license to bombard with messages. Extraversion and all.

Then there's the fact that I spend far too much time on a computer than I'd rather show people actually. :) It's inconvenient dancing between visible and invisible all the time.

The above is a total sidetrek. On to Facebook's foibles:

I basically kinda want 'in' because of the whole inclusion deal. But I'm not sure I can handle complete inclusion either. Being a strong introvert and all. People constantly chatting to me might drive me up the wall.

There's the whole gossip factor. I can do a bit of it. And smalltalk. Too much and I start feeling that the whole world is a very mundane minded Muggle kind of place. The negativity and poison that comes along with gossip gets to me. Stress levels and depression build up... And then I run the risk of going postal with an imaginary AK-47. Not exactly a nice scenario endpoint.

I have this personal 'thing' against putting my real name out there for everyone to see as well. Some of it is privacy and identity theft issues. I do a lot of online shopping. I rather not make it any easier for people to guess my passwords and steal my credit card information.

I also rather not get stalked. It's helluva easy to just trawl the internet and collect the world's most mindboggling information on someone - names, friends, birthdays, photos, old classmates, you name it, it's there. How do I know? Cos I do it. :P Not to stalk, but out of random boredom or nostalgia or plain curiosity. I don't follow up with any of it, mostly cos I'm a lazy private bastard, but it's so damnably easy that it is all prime stalker territory.

There's the uniqueness of my name, alas. If I was named "Cheryl Tan" or something equally generic, then it's harder to sort out one from another across a bazillion states and half a dozen continents. I'm already sorta grumpy about what's already out there. One's work-related. No choice. The other is the ill-made decision to join something in my youth and whose persistence across the intarweb for a goodly ten years has warned me off sticking my name all over the place.

And then there's the totally personal grudge about the actual name itself and how it doesn't suit me, my personality or my self-image. Too...flowery. (Let's not even get into the symbolic meaning of my Chinese name, whose attempts at evoking a graceful girly image make me laugh in highly ironic fashion.)

Lord knows what does though. I basically treat the name as linked to my external appearance as a perfectly prosaic mask to waffle through life with.

There's too many facets of me. They all got separated and named individually as my various story characters long ago with slightly more distinct personalities. The outward presenting character I show to a mundane Singapore is the one linked to the name on my IC. Maybe that's ever so slightly psychotic. Maybe I'm just being honest.

Isn't it all masks under the surface superficial layer? That there's different 'frames' that people look through and alter their personalities (or behavior anyhow) slightly to suit? A person isn't the same person at work, or at play, or at home, when treating an adult, or a child, one's boss or one's subordinate, etc.

And then there's genetics and general unphotogenicity. It's just a teensy bit sad when your body doesn't exactly correspond to media images of what beauty constitutes, and the most helpful, positive adjectives people can trawl up are 'cute' or a 'hamster' or 'teddy bear.' Bleh. While resembling a Care Bear has its occasional advantages, the gist is that most of me doesn't agree with the outward presenting mask (and associated name) that has its functional uses. So I have allergies towards what I look like in a mirror, in a photo, and the attached name... especially being on display. (Cue instinct for introversion.) So sue me.

Whereas the very idea of Facebook is presenting a certain side of oneself for public display. ("Yay, look at how many 'friends' I have!")

Of course I could always treat Facebook as an extended public mask. Everyone makes decisions on how much to show of themselves, after all. Some of the games of Facebook fascinate me on how they rely on the social network aspect (goodness knows how much time I would lose to them though). I can't help feeling like I have an entire social network just slipping through my fingers because everyone else and their freaking mother is on Facebook.

And I'm also scared to death of the idea that everyone and their freaking mother is on Facebook. That makes it a prime target for attacks. Virii, stalking, phishing, the works.

It is annoying as hell. This push-pull. There are lost opportunities and opportunity costs whichever way I lean.

Why the hell can't my life be simpler? :/

I could be like a total internet moron with complete disregard for personal and computer safety (oh, I need to reformat everything, har?!) and then leap down the Facebook slope, facefirst, tongue out.

But then I would be like everyone else. :/ That's patently out of the question.

I could also be a total hermit and recluse still living with their parents, with eleven imaginary cats, and not give a flying fuck about connecting with other people, and throw Facebook out the window.

Except I'm not that either (really, HONEST. Well, the cats are a lie... I'll settle for seven) and I do still have a bare minimum of emotional/social connection requirements (Maslow's hierarchy of human needs and all that) and I won't mind being open to more news and opportunities.

Bah.

I actually prefer sporadic face-to-face human connection. It's kinda weird. SMSes I hate. Everyone here uses SMSes. I have issues with MSN, ICQ and other messengers. Seems like the whole internet generation (plus minus one or two) uses their ilk. Now it's Web 2.0 with Twitter and Facebook and Myspace and whatever else. Me, I hate 'em all. Didn't like IRC for that matter too.

MUDs and MMOs are okay though. Something about having an avatar. An actual virtual "body" yet with license to rename oneself and be 'not you.' Slightly more freeing than having to be 'you' as you appear in real life, all the freaking time.

Bunch of chance interactions in reality are quite enough for me. It's a challenge for me every time to work in the appropriate amount of smalltalk and body language and participate yet not really in gossip and semi-meaningless vocalizations of socialization. Tis exhausting. Others do it naturally. It's a subconscious, occasionally very conscious, studied effort for me.

Thing is, I'm not getting enough chance intersections in reality to keep in touch with that particular network of ex-colleagues. Cos they are all ex-colleagues! Hence the Facebook dilemma.

But that might end up too MANY intersections in reality for me to handle.

It's tempting. On the one hand, it'll show a different, possibly more attractive/interesting/deeper, less prosaic/professional/work-oriented side of me to folks. On the other hand, there's a reason why I put the mask out to begin with, for mutual protection of my true self and others from each other. :P

People only get designated as crazies and psychos if they can't keep imagination and reality separate from each other, y'know? People say I'm supercalm and logical and rational. I gotta be. It's more socially pleasant than the alternatives that could be roiling beneath, mmmkay? I have a firm grip on me because you don't want to see me explode like a volcano, trust me. Not everything has to be exposed to others.

I can't help but think that this is a common line that everybody toes. Mostly subconsciously. Ingrained by instinct and cultural mores. Maybe I'm completely mistaken and the way other people's minds work is entirely different and ineffable.

But a million books, films and literature suggest that sanity and mental illness are two sides of a very thin coin cut out of foil. We could all be that insane psychopath in the horror flick, given the right emotional triggers and justifications. We could all be the stalker figure. Or a criminal. Or the dark side of a face staring out from the abyss.

Some people happily deny it and paint the world in white and black colors. I'm good. They're evil. Sorry, I can't do that. I think that's delusional. That's just me speaking, though. :/ (A hell of a lot of people do it, I know. It is very scary.)

I think the difference is that the one loses control and chooses to affect others in reality, whether they like it or not. It's all become about their 'self.' Me, me, me, what I want. Sorry if you don't like it. Nuthing personal. Then they act that out, in ways that infringe on other people's social rights, with unacceptable behavior.

The marvel is that humans have developed enough social controls so that this doesn't happen that often, that dramatically. We skirt the edge of the abyss. We pull back from infringing on other people's personal zones. Just like cramped Asians studiously avoid meeting each others' eyes in a too crowded living space.

Eh. And I have completely sidetreked once again from lamenting about my reluctance to join in on Facebook.

More people need to marry, maybe. I can deal with a wedding dinner or two to meet up and chat. I will totally haemorrage money from ang baos though. :/