Facebook, we have a problem....

Dear Facebook,

I don’t exactly know how to tell you this – so I’ll just say it.

I’m breaking up with you.

I know I owe you an explanation. It’s me. Really. It’s not you.

You see, at first I was enamored with you. You were my ticket to an exciting social life. Being an introvert, you gave me over 100 friends. Think of that. Me, a bookish middle-aged homebody collecting over 100 friends in just a few weeks! I finally felt popular, cool and hip.

I loved you for that.

Of course, most of the friends I collected were nieces, nephews, sisters, brother, my husband and old college friends I haven’t talked to in 20 years. But hey, it made me feel good that so many people “friended” me.

I loved spending hours with you. In our honeymoon phase, I couldn’t get enough of you. I wanted to know what my friends were doing every minute. I would read the latest update from that guy I barely knew in college, and see photos documenting my friends’ seemingly perfect lives. I stalked my friends’ walls to find out what was going on in their worlds. I no longer had to pick up the phone to find out. I just had to click on their wall, and I’d know how they were feeling, what they were doing, and what time they were going to bed.

In the first months of our love, I wrote and rewrote my status, trying to come up with something witty and smart. I carefully edited and cropped the photos I posted. I didn’t want anyone to see me at a bad angle. Maybe if I cropped the photos just right, I might bear a slight resemblance to Tea Leoni and acquaintances I hadn’t seen in years would think, “Hey, she’s really aged well! She looks happy and successful!’

I craved comments. They reminded me that people were noticing me. Little ol’ me! They were interested that I just had oatmeal for breakfast. And they cared that I had survived a hellish commute on the train. Never before had anyone been so interested in the mundane details of my life. It made me feel loved.

I thought about you constantly. Even at work. I logged on in-between projects, hoping none of my colleagues would notice I was updating my status instead of working. I couldn’t get you off of my mind.

But then everything changed.

I started feeling empty and bad whenever we were together. I realized that my friends seemed interested in my photos and status updates. But often, that was the extent of our friendship. It was my fault just as much as theirs. I was just as guilty of merely trading status updates instead of picking up the phone and asking someone to meet me for coffee. But still, I felt vaguely bad that our friendship didn’t go beyond our virtual walls.

And I realized I felt jealous. I started comparing the carefully selected photos of my friends with my own carefully cropped photos. And guess what – I didn’t measure up. I started feeling like I needed to be something more – more successful to impress that old college friend. More beautiful, so that I would get more comments (and the right kind of comments) on my photos. More witty in order to prompt people to react to my status updates. And more financially stable so I could post pictures of a wonderful beach vacation.

I just can’t do it anymore, Facebook. You’re slowing stealing my soul and making me dissatisfied with the life God has given me. Spending too much time with you caused me to want to be someone different than who God has created me to be.

I think I deserve to spend time with someone who likes me for who I am, and knows the real me. The me who is more complex that what could ever be expressed in a 10 word status update.

All of those hours I’ve spend browsing the photos of my 100+ friends, and reading their wall postings? Those are hours I could have been writing a novel, or spending time with my husband, or knitting or painting or having coffee with a friend getting to know them and all of their joys and struggles and disappointments – not their Facebook persona.

I’ve decided I’d rather have real, deep, meaningful friends than the kind you offer. I want real community. Not brief, status updates. I want real, live flesh and blood hugs, not a little icon placed on my virtual wall.

Don’t get me wrong. You’ve given me a lot. A chance to connect with old friends. A way to see photos of my nieces and nephews. A way to keep up to date on the latest news.

But I don’t think that’s enough to keep us in a long-term relationship. I will miss you, and remember the wonderful times we had together.

I need to find myself again. And find my community.

And you know, God doesn’t even have a profile on Facebook, so I have to log out in order to be friends with him. I think I owe him some status updates.

So, goodbye for now, Facebook.

Don’t try to contact me or send me status updates. I will be busy living my life.