Goodbye Facebook

 I’ve left Facebook. But there’s a problem. Now I’m wondering where to post ‘I just left Facebook’ as my current status. I suppose Twitter. But if I do that I might get too addicted to Twitter, and then I’ll have to quit Twitter too and if I do that I won’t be able to pour out my innermost thoughts to the whole world in 140 characters.

I left Facebook because I only have six years to finish my novel before moving to New York, and let’s face it, in six years time there’s no way that having an incredible high score in Bejewelled Blitz and two thousand friends who like my latest status is going to get me Brownie points on a Visa application to the USA. And besides, the book won’t be finished, and I really don’t want to still be a wannabe writer when I’m well over fifty.

I’ve convinced myself that the three extra hours per day that releasing myself from Facebook will bring, will be spent writing my novel, and so far so good, I’ve been at it all day. But realistically the novel writing is just a stop gap until I find a new time wasting addiction. I’m thinking chatting to neighbours (the old fashioned Facebook), writing letters of complaint, phoning in to chat shows and Bingo.

Of course Facebook is a bit like a bad lover. I’ve ditched it before, but I keep going back, just because there’s nothing better and it starts luring me again. And when that happens I start to convince myself that it’s going to be a great way to network and get noticed. But as they say in the money spinning self help books – if you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. And from Facebook, all I’ve gotten so far is a lot of addicting games, news about other peoples successful lives; people who seem to be able to juggle success while living on a Facebook page, Farmville requests and pleas to help save the old bridge somewhere on the outskirts of Leicester.

But I’ll miss it. I’ll miss envying how great everyone else seems to be doing and I’ll miss logging on and then hating myself for being on Facebook at all. But the worst thing is the wondering if anyone notices I’m gone. I remember a few years ago I set my status to something like ‘I’m leaving Facebook in five days, goodbye everybody.’

Of my five hundred and something virtual friends two of them said they’d miss me. Not great considering that one of those two people live with me, and the other one was the stalker who I leaving Facebook to avoid. And worse, a few people clicked the ‘like’ button, which I wasn’t sure meant that they liked the fact I was as good as virtually dying, or whether they liked my bravery for turning my back on the world of having my social life removed from my living room.

So there you go – goodbye Facebook, hello staring into Space book. And of course considering that my greatest link to the blog was via Facebook, there’s probably nobody reading this blog right now. Or is there? Hello? Hello?

Damn this is lonely…