Fearing Facebook

I don't know if I can get in trouble by mentioning another site, but does anyone else feel sick to their stomach when they go to facebook, and see one of the few friends they have making plans to hang out with tons of people? I struggle just to muster the courage to be around others, while they just breeze through creating friendships.It reminds me how lonely I am and how much I've failed at creating friendships. I guess its just jealousy, but it hurts me to go there and see that no one is talking to me, but everyone is talking to the few people I know. Anyone else get that feeling? Ugh.

All the time I'm on FB, I just hide those certain people.

One of my friends currently lists 749 friends... She is always chatting with them, remembering important times in their lives and the like... I have been by her side for over 10 years now and have fallen by the wayside.
I have learned that those relationships are easier for her. They are more shallow and safer than the relationship she and I had. I called her out when she started smoking again after 8 years, they just said hurry back from your smoke break. Now I am someone she calls when she is in need... When she has spent $100's of dollars to start smoking after 8 years but has no money for her kids for christmas...
So... all those connections may not be as they seem. Just a thought.

Facebook gives the illlusion that you have many friends but it a load of crock. Everyone tries to give the impression of what a great time they are having and how popular they are when in thruth if you were to really meet the people face to face you'd find that you have nothing in common. I have to listen to people complaining how they hooked up with each other on face book and everything was great until they actually met in real life and the person didnt bother with them anymore. I would dearly love to find two friends I had at school but am loath to go on face book having to trawl through invites. I get enough of that from the few people I am in contact whose "friends" want me to add them. It can be very depressing for others who would like the friendships but are ignored. Well thats my rant for the day.

I get what you mean completely. There are a few people I have in my friends on Facebook who go to my school and could be considered "popular." They never talk to me, but they're always posting about their friends and what they're doing today, and about their relationships. It makes me really jealous, because I don't have much of a life like they do. Sometimes I get depressed because of it, and I just have to get off of Facebook. But I agree that just because someone is friends on Facebook doesn't mean they have more of a life than you. They could have friends on their Facebook's they never even talk to in real life. You just never know. So I wouldn't let it get you down too much.

I know what you mean! I try to avoid Facebook as much as I can. I am happy for the people that are so happy in life, but I get so depressed when I read a status of "I love my Husband. I love my Family. I love my Life". I fade away and feel hopeless, as usual.

it does make me feel sick sometime.

I havent logged on to facebook in a few weeks and i have to say i dont miss it. sometimes i wonder if i am missing out on social events... but i feel better without it :-)

I hate Facebook, it's stupid...if you have hundreds of friends on line, its a crock of crap....i went on one time to check it out, and 3 girls from grade school wanted to friend me, they bullied me for years and 25 years later they wanted to catch up... fools... it's stupid and will never join it, invasion of privacy and the guy who so called discovered it, stole the idea..

Everytime i get on facebook it depresses me. I only get on it to see what my neices and nephews are up to since i don't get to see them or talk to them much and they don't use email. But i notice no one says anything to me, there are never any new comments on my wall. I see everyone talking about what they have done on the weekend and what is going on with them, talking about their families. I feel so alone and so embarrassed about my own life. I hate getting on it.

I'm with you babydoll - I hate Facebook too. Probably in 20 yrs, no one will actually go visit their family and friends...they'll just vegetate and talk online lol.

LOL!! You are probably right!!!! texting eachother sitting next to eachother, oops, i think people are doing that now!! hope you are doing great!!!

Yeah I hate it. I have mostly family on their now and it sucks. I got one half (my Dad's) exercise their "family clan"-ness all the time. I suppose it's not as bad as them excluding me and drawing a very thick line between them and I to my face as they used to, but it hurts nonetheless. On my other half, well they play the "we're always here for you" game to my face but never call or ask me to visit them really. We're invite to birthday parties.. but.. parties are parties. The more people come the more presents they get. They always say that I can always call and come visit. I took them up on that, I called once, got up there once and I thought now this was gonna knock down those walls and after this they were gonna call me now too. Never happened.

I only keep facebook up as a mask. I'll post a thousand pictures giving everyone the illusion that "yes everything is fine here. Happy without you, don't worry about me." I'd love to actually delete my fb.. but then at the same time it keeps my head in reality so I don't go off thinking that their behavior is my fault like before.

I can relate...both on FB and in real life. My friends are fine, it's my family. Ever since I can remember, once my brothers and sisters started getting married and we got together they would do things such as "outshop eachother" buying expensive things in expensive stores. They had their nails professionally done and I just felt the odd woman out. Over the years, I have notced after these get togethers, if I stay with part of my family I find that they are experiencing extreme buyers remorse or have saved money up for months to make it look like they are doing so well when they just struggle for groceries.

It was odd to find this out, but it made me proud to be able to be just me, in jeans, rolling around the floor with the animals or hiking with their kids while they went shopping. If you ask me, I think me and the kids had the right idea.

Moral of the story? Not everything is as it appears.

and *nodds in agreement with whats said so far* (((everyone)))

Facebook scared me at first and now after being on it for awhile, it just drives me insane. I was required to get a page b/c I am an officer in a school organization. I am a private person and wanted to stay that way. Thank goodness for the privacy settings. However, some of the friends requests.... trying to figure out who these people are, are they really people I know? The 'likes' on pages, I can't say that I care, what's the point? Number of friends, like in life - It's quality, not quantity. I am concerned over some of the things I have seen on Facebook and other similar sites that people post on their pages; employers, schools, etc. look at these things now; do they not consider this? I just can't get into it the way some have or I may not be using it to its full potential. However, I just realized I sound like Scrooge, ba humbug Facebook. I can see why some love it and really appreciate it; I just can't get into it. I don't have enough time to spend on it either and not sure I want to from what I've seen. It just feels like one more place I have check into, but is the one place I don't look forward to checking in with.

I am very much an introverted person myself. Facebook is very ill suited to people like me. Its too much like real life. Its hard to fit in. Way too much gossip and BS and smalltalk going on.
In my experience, if you feel ill at ease with the kind of people who frequent facebook, getting to know people is a lot easier if you try through forum sites such as this one. Perhaps one on one communication is more your thing rather than trying to fit into a group or clan or clique.

I 'quit' facebook for almost 5 months because of all this.. I especially hated when it was someone's birthday and everyone would be posting on their wall, and I'd feel really awkward because if I did it too, it would seem like I was just following everybody else. It was so much easier to greet a friend before, when just remembering their birthday was special. It's the reason I kind of stopped greeting friends this year and I always feel bad about that.

I went back because of my dad, he kept wanting me to sign in to show me the friendstream app, and if I refused, he would get mad because I wasn't cooperating.. He said he doesn't understand me, and he is so right about that.

Now I find myself frequenting the friendstream to see what everyone is posting, but I'm afraid to post anything myself. I wish I hadn't shown my pressence again on fb. I'm a bit pressured to go back because I don't want to ignore my friends who did post on my wall and stuff, but I also don't want to go back. I hate having to either post on everything, or choose and ignore some people but not others.

HAHA! Funny you should mention tht about texting, my niece and nephew are 14 & 15 and they are always texting. Well oneday them and my husband was driving to visit relatives and they were texing like crazy. Husband asked who they were texting. They were texting eachother! In the same car!
As far as the fb, I have mostly family on there. I use it mainly to keep up with how they are.