So, I’m relaxing after a new episode of Orange is the New Black, or maybe it was a replay of Empire. And I have returned to the torture
of becoming a face on Face book. I posted one message. Minutes later I removed it when a relative
objected to it. Too personal, she said.
As a novelist, I’m open to revealing any
number of personal secrets usually through a nom de persona, of course,
so my fences around my privacy are jumpable and I have found out that my
boundaries are not necessarily the boundaries of others. A good lesson for a Facebook member, perhaps:
“Don’t tell the truth,” Not a good lesson for a novel writer.
I do try to keep some things private,
for the sake of family and marriage, yet I indulge and in fact, am expected to
promote my writing in the most unprivate ways, to complete strangers. “Social
media,’ my publishers advise. “You need a platform. Lots of friends..” I’m confused about what that means.
I understand that I should not divulge
my husband’s current urinary complications, but I do tell friends, real friends
about it. But I’m becoming confused
about what the word “friend” means now. I would like a few more friends the way
I knew the word meant twenty years ago.
Facebook keeps telling me that so-and-so
would be a wonderful friend, Twitter lets me know the someone in Ghana wishes
to know me better .
Amazon, a new kind of really big
friend, offers lists of books I will like next since people just like me have
ordered these books too.
Today Facebook lets me know that I’ve
not answered three friend
requests. Am I sick, it wonders, with great concern.
And the most intimate leak of
information, for me, a reasonably private haus-frau, has nothing to do with choice of reading matter. It is my weekly grocery
list. Lately, the local foodstuffs giant
sends me coupons for many of the foods I’ve bought recently, recipes that might
go with the cheese I chose a week ago, and to make sure I drop by in my weekly
manner, a discount on the adult diapers I buy for my mother. In a friendly
gesture, it sends a small check at the end of the month. To spend on the diapers, I suppose.
Next month I will enjoy few days at
the beach with old ladies like myself, whom I’ve known since before anyone knew
what digital meant, but we do know what friendship is, and we will share our
ideas of what the world is coming to over glasses of white wine.
As a blogger I sometimes go too far writing personal things about family members, and this can be a problem. I've heard it said and I tend to agree: Having lots of friends on Facebook is like sitting at the popular table in an insane asylum.
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