Once I joined Facebook.  After receiving and ignoring multiple invitations, I felt pressured to do so.  At some point, when I felt I might be insulting people,  I accepted, friended, befriended -- whatever it's called -- joined up, got all pumped up, then 48 hours later I cancelled my membership.

 It started out innocently enough, as most things do.  Since I've never quite figured out how to do anything in moderation  I became obsessed with reading about other people's lives, and I spent way too much time doing it.  I am a "people person," you see, and I gravitate toward human interest stories first.  

 Reading about my friends' daily exploits would be fine, probably, if that was solely what I did.  My checkups became hourly, and I wasn't reading solely about my friends.  Linking into the worlds of their friends became a new pastime for me. Previously, when girlfriends have tried to spend our telephone time telling me intimate details of their friends' lives, I have vehemently objected, explaining that we didn't have enough time to discuss our own lives, let alone the lives of people I don't even know.

You can guess where this is leading. When I read the post of an acquaintance making weekend plans with another acquaintance, both of whom I barely knew and had made no effort to get to know better, due to circumstances which had nothing to do with my opinion of either of them, I found myself feeling...get this...JEALOUS that they were having this friendship.  Ick!  

About 30 seconds later I cancelled my Facebook account and have never regretted it.  

 Now, so far, on OS, certainly I've had no feelings of jealousy over anything or anybody.  My writing skills don't even rate in this crowd!  I have learned that checking out the "popularity" tab is a complete waste of time.  (I did that tonight, for the first time.)  My favorite way to read OS is to hop around from one person's page to another.  After reading a post, the comments, I then hop on over to the page of a favorite of that person.  Of course, a lot of great material flies by, and I miss out. 

Another tack I took today was to pick one writer whose style I admired, go to her page, and start going through her stuff.  It's wonderful!  But who has the time for this?  I've been on "staycation," which is about to come to a screeching halt, and my addiction is far from satisfied! 

 Those of you who read and write for a living or are independently wealthy have it made!  I have to face my addiction and learn to moderate myself soon, or I will have to quit cold turkey.  It it's the latter and I disappear for a while, please know it was nothing you said!