Breaking Up is Hard to Do

Dear FB,

This is difficult to say, but over the past few weeks I have come to finally admit that our relationship just isn’t working out. I have tried, but the feelings are gone and I don’t think they are coming back.

I remember when we first met – the hours spent sitting with you on the couch, telling you things about myself, showing you photos. I told you about my favorite books and movies, my favorite music and pastimes. I told you where I’d travelled and what I’d done. I would check in with you several times a day, letting you know what I was thinking, what I was doing. You sat with me in airport terminals and coffee shops. You always had some gossip or trivia about our mutual friends. Then when I got my iPhone, it was like you were with me all the time.

We have had some difficult moments – times when I thought what I shared with you was private, only to discover you’d shared it with the world and I had to tell you not to do that anymore. And sometimes you’d suddenly change with no warning and I’d have to get accustomed to the new you. Recently I felt you have become too possessive, wanting to know exactly where I am at all times. And I refused to play your games or start a farm with you. But we made it though those seasons.

I will treasure some things about our relationship. Before I met you, I was virtually friendless. Then you came along and brought the party with you. Suddenly, I had more friends than I thought possible. They poked me and gave me gifts. They wrote on my wall and sent me messages. We chatted. You reconnected me with at least a dozen people I had not contacted in years, and now I hear from them regularly – or at least I see their status. I want you to know that I honestly appreciate that. That would not have happened without you.

Now I have exactly 1120 friends, so many I can’t really keep up with them all. In fact, I can’t really keep up with any of them. Our relationships have grown shallow and superficial. We share trivia, jests, and pointless observations. Is this all there is to a relationship? I have the sense that I’m staying in touch with people, but really I’m not.

Don’t take this personally, FB. It is not about you, really, it’s about me. I just cannot feel committed to our relationship any more. Maybe my expectations are unrealistic, but I want something more real, something deeper, and I just can’t find it with you, in spite of all the time we spend together. I’m not blaming you or any of your more than 500 million active users who spend more than 700 billion minutes per month with you. And I’m not judging you or them, either. It’s not about that.

In a good relationship, one hopes to become a better person. I’m not sure it has worked that way for us. Honestly, I think you have helped me become a bit more narcissistic. That’s not your fault – it’s mine. Although you told me that more than a thousand people needed to know tiny details about my life and thinking, I believed you. Admittedly, I often wrote status updates or posted photos, not to inform, but to impress. (And, ironically, I’m breaking up with you in a blogpost for all the world to see. Clearly I have a way to go in recovering from our years together.)

So I’m going to break this off. I’m returning all the photos, the flair, and the notes I wrote you. You can keep them. And if it is alright with you, I’ll continue relating to some of my friends in other ways, although I’m not sure how. Being with you so much has gotten me out of the habit. Perhaps if they want to know what is going on in my life without actually talking to me, they could read the blog that I have neglected since you and I have been seeing each other (www.ubcsp.blogspot.com). At least there I try to reveal myself a bit more authentically. Or perhaps I could go back to emailing people rather than sending and receiving FB messages, which just show up as an email anyway (Robert_Creech@baylor.edu). Perhaps they could call me or I could call them and we could have a conversation (cell phone number available by email request). Or we could sit with my friend Skype and hear each other and see each other. Or, possibly, we might even sit down, face to face, and talk. I don’t know how I will get along without you right now, but I know I must.

So this is goodbye. I promise not to talk bad about you to others. Please, don’t call and beg me to reconsider. But I do hope we can still be “friends.”

Virtually gone,

rrc