Facebook and this extrovert

I have been on Facebook since 2006.  It’s been an extremely useful tool for me to reconnect with so many wonderful people who have been in or are currently my life – long friends from primary, middle and high school, distant relatives living across the US and around the world, current friends and peers from church, work, school and the neighborhood. 

How did we connect with all these wonderful people when we didn’t have Facebook?

Being and extrovert – most people often know how I am ‘doing’ with just the expression on my face.   My co-workers know when I don’t agree with something or hold a difference of opinion.   I seem like a pretty open book to most people.   It’s true, I was the kid that danced on the kitchen table just to get a few laughs or threw the board game when I wasn’t winning.  And if you do that long enough – no one really takes you that serious and not many people ever stop to actually read your pages of your life.  Ever. 

99% of my friends, family don’t really know how highly sensitive, emotional and deep I can be.   Because those people still see a me as a that silly, outgoing, egotistical, goof-off.  My motto in life became ‘if the shoe fits – why not?’   I learned to wear a smile and hide my true feelings- phenomenally. 

I have become a master of disguise, so to speak.  I build a very, very large fortress around my heart.  Only that 1% of people I know, have really ever been invited into my fortress and seen my heart fully exposed.   Everyone else will never see my daily struggles, fears, or iniquities – which are far greater than I would ever truly admit.    

I believe in transparency for many things – accounting, internal controls, policy and procedures, government, scotch tape, parenting, and especially in marriage.   I think it’s important to be an open book when it comes to many things.  But I see how we have become highly opaque in our social media.  No one wants to be that vulnerable.  Not even this extrovert. 

I just read someone say “Facebook is a great tool to exchange thoughts, images, photos, laughs, suggestions, inspiration, and many other valuable things, but in many ways it's a facade.”  How true. 

We choose what friends see.  We choose what the world sees.  Some people are genuine.  Some people air their dirty laundry.  Some people post nothing and only watch.  Some people only show the 'good' stuff.  We choose our social media personalities, all the while hiding who we really are.   I highly believe privacy is important and I never post private matters, so I don’t anticipate my friends to do otherwise.  But what I have discovered by never showing my vulnerability or my heart, I am only building up my fortress higher and higher.   And by doing so for so long, I found that I am more cynical, angry, judgmental and jealous.   I put on that smile day after day, when really my heart is hurting.  

So here’s my thing:  Extroverts needs people and as an extrovert I need people.  Real people.   I know that people 'online' aren’t real.  We’re all just a bunch of Pinocchios (self-included.)   And at the end of the day, Facebeook doesn’t fulfill my need to be energized by real human interactions.   Facebook is not a good substitute for real relationships and that's what I need in my life right now.  

Don’t get me wrong, I love, love, love, love reading and seeing my friends’ adventures,  the family trips, the celebrations of birth and marriage, and all the  other wonderful inspirational things.  But at the end of the day, I am still deflated.  I am still hiding in my fortress, longing for more people knocked on my door.  I would love for you to get to know me more, but that’s never going to happen on Facebook. 

So, I have deleted the Facebook application off my phone.  I realized how many times a day do I look at all my facebook notifications on my phone.  In addition, I have deleted the bookmark shortcut off my computers – both work and home.   Not because I am breaking up with Facebook or taking a stand against technology, but rather as a reminder to myself.   A reminder, that I need more interaction with people... I don't want to be lazy friend anymore.  It’s too easy to just look at the news feed and see how everyone’s "doing" and calling it a day.   Because chances are... if my friends are anything like me,  that’s not really sharing how they are really doing and I need to make more of an effort to get out of my Facebook fortress and be more real and be a better friend.