Or Dear Barry: I Hate People, Too!

When Bill Clinton was President, people said of him that he liked to “compartmentalize.” It struck me as a perjorative and I’d think, “well, what’s so wrong with THAT?” You know, before the whole Monica-thing. Compartmentalizing was a necessary quality to multi-tasking, particularly in order to get things done.

Compartments help me organize my life. Keeping tasks and people separate and distinct keeps the boundaries clear between all of my varied interests: work, play, family, church, social issues, politics, etc. While there is obviously some overlap, there are good reasons people say politics and family don’t mix and that watercooler topics exist.

 

Facebook is trying to change all that. As I’ve “friended” more people on Facebook, all of my neatly constructed compartments are bumping into one another. It’s like going to (or egads, hosting) a party where you’re afraid that all of your “compartments” will collide. The flaming liberal church friends will clash with your right-wing nut job boss. Your old college friends will spend the evening telling your new husband’s family about all of your youthful indiscretions. You get the picture!

And, it’s not just Facebook. My other social media hangouts, Open Salon (WOOT!) and Twitter, add layers of complexity and whole new compartments to the mix. The OS and Twitter models, though, cause considerably less heartburn because their post and comment models do not necessarily assume a friendship or reciprocal relationship. When I’m on OS, I am here to engage in a discussion of issues, including political or contentious ones. On Twitter, I expect my stream to reflect the hot-button issues of the day.

Here’s the thing: It’s starting to make my head explode! There I’ll be, cruising along in Facebook, viewing people’s vacation photos, catching up with old friends, checking out some cool or informative links, when BOOM! there it is – a status update bashing Obama, a negative and pissy comment on health-care reform, more Palin-quizzes – showing up unsolicited in my update stream. Worse than the stupid trivia quizzes and memes, which are only sort of annoying, these are like nails on a chalkboard. I don’t mind links to interesting articles, even when (and sometimes especially) when it offers a differing perspective, but when it gets ugly and petty and partisan, my head just blows up.



Oh, I know I should follow my own advice: Do Not Engage! But sometimes I just can’t help myself. And I don’t want to totally block the folks with whom I disagree, although sometimes that is the right answer. We can still be friends, I just think it’s best if we don’t go there.

So, dear Facebook friends, here’s my bottom line:

Facebook is about friendship and connecting. For me, it’s a place to relax and enjoy. I’m not there to get into spitting contests or contentious debates or continuously defend President Obama. If you want to engage in a political discussion, debate health care or torture or the various merits of Joe Biden v. Dick Cheney, I’d suggest you start a blog post (OS is a great place for great discussion) and link to it or get yourself a Twitter account and invite me to follow you.

p.s., Facebook is NOT Twitter (even though it wants to be!) And, if FB buys Twitter and tries to commingle all of these compartments, my head really MIGHT explode!