Joined facebook but wishing i hadnt

[heretostay]

at my counselor's insistence that i reach out more, i joined facebook and have been contacting old college friends and adding some friends from my current college. its causing me a lot of anxiety. im wishing i hadnt now. here's the problem. first off, i dont have many friends, 11 total and only like six if you dont count family. I feel kind of embarrassed about that. and secondly, now i feel pressured to respond. I dont know what to say. and i seem to offend people easily because of it. but it seems stupid to add these people and then say nothing to them. I dont even have anything to post on my wall. so now im just annoyed.... anyone else have these anxieties?

 

[h i]

<3

ya. i gave up on myspace. never had a facebook cause i never wanted one. it was fun meeting people and doing html to my web page, but i had nothing to say... im not friends with any of those people now. so the count doesnt really matter. you could have 1000 friends, and still end up being lonely. most people add bands to help make them look popular. its fun listening to music.

 

[bbm662]

exact same thing happened to me, except there wasn't a counselor. I never do know what to say in most situations.

 

[Zackarydoo]

I only have 4 people in my Facebook friend's list at the moment. I've had more in the past, but always end up deleting them. I deleted several recently because I was fed up being ignored by them. It bugs me when people add you as a friend but then ignore you if you write to them, comment on their status, write on their wall, etc.. I don't want 'friends' like that. I want people to communicate with regularly, but it's very hard to find people who want the same.

 

[*The Cursed One*]

I hate Facebook

I have just over 200 people in my friends list at the moment, most of them I've known since childhood (school, college, university etc). But these days I only really talk to about 5 or 10 of them regularly.

What I find more depressing though is viewing everyones' profiles and seeing that they're having a great time in their life - that they're able to be more sociable and popular than I'll ever be.

I'd delete it but can't bring myself to do it - mainly because the last time I temporarily disactivated it someone chose that moment to spread malicious rumours about me :rolleyes2:

 

[Chair]

Facebook is overrated.

 

[SophiaGrace]

I only have 4 people in my Facebook friend's list at the moment. I've had more in the past, but always end up deleting them. I deleted several recently because I was fed up being ignored by them. It bugs me when people add you as a friend but then ignore you if you write to them, comment on their status, write on their wall, etc.. I don't want 'friends' like that. I want people to communicate with regularly, but it's very hard to find people who want the same.

i have over 200 friends and I dont mind if they dont post on my wall constantly.

I just like to know where other people are in their life that ive known...

lots of people usually post on my wall when its my birthday

 

[Zackarydoo]

I don't expect anyone to write on my wall constantly, it's not that at all. If I write to them though them it's only polite to reply and not always ignore me. It bugs me how 99% of people on the Internet (not just Facebook) ignore me when I write to them. I'm sure people didn't used to be that rude! LOL.

 

[DrawingCircleCircles]

I get FB anxieties as well. Maybe not the same way, but whenever I send msgs and comments. I have this negative cloud over my head when I don't get a response back or an immediate response, but experience has taught me to shake those thoughts out and have patience with people.

Its similar to when I send a txt msg and get no response back.

I know there's this weird pressure to have so many friends on FB like its a game, but really there shouldn't. FB is just a tool that is there for us to use. I used Myspace to reconnect with my best friend from elementary and used FB to get in touch with people who I know can help me different problems. If a person adds you, its because they have a memory of you. So saying hi, how are you is not a weird thing to say.

Things I've learned though is that friendships can die if you don't put out the effort to maintain them. So my advice is say something! Doesn't matter what you actually say, its really more on how you say things.

 

[Zackarydoo]

I know what you're saying about having patience, and I accept that other people take longer than I do usually to write back because they have more things to do in their lives than I do. If I always write to people or comment to them though and after weeks they've still said nothing, then that's not right. Also people sometimes just add me as a friend and I have no idea who they are, but I'd usually add them anyway and write to ask who they are and try to be friendly with them. If they ignore me that first time when I'm making an effort, I just delete them after a couple of days.

Like you said, there is this thing on FB to have more friends than everyone else, and it's kinda silly. I have at least made one good friend there who lives locally to me, which I'm happy about. Another guy I knew from school writes sometimes too, and a girl I met playing Scrabble too writes occasionally. I would like to have more people in my list though, maybe people who also don't know many people and would like someone to write to sometimes (anyone interested, please IM me!).

I did take one girl off my list because although I now speak to her most days and we have a kinda long-distance relationship going on, she is completely useless at replying to me! She used to write most days but now she barely does at all. I've yet to understand why but as we speak and get along very well, I try not to go on about it and risk annoying her too much. She is like 2 different people on the phone and in Facebook. In the end I got so stressed from seeing she was online but still not writing to me, no matter how much I wrote to her, that I agreed with her that I'd just take her off my list to save the stress. It's been a few days now since I did that and it's definitely helped.

 

[Coverage]

I have a facebook that I dont use too much. I have about 70 people on it. The thing about facebook is that people will sadd anyone they have ever met in their lives to their friends list. Most of my friends are people that I went to school with, but I dont really know them.

Yeah I comment on peoples comments every now and then, but aside from that I dont ever send people messages and I never really get messages either. I only remove people if their public comments annoy me. I dont really expect them to write on my wall, heck even me and my good friends never even do anything on each others profiles.

 

[Pixie]

Ugh Facebook. I used it to keep in touch with a friend from highschool.
But I deleted my account. I didn't use it much and I had no friends on there except for my highschool buddy and some family members that could care less what I was upto LOL

Yeahhh pretty embarrassing .... but I didnt expect much. In highschool I was popular and had a bunch of so-called friends one day and the next I was bullied so bad I had to transfer schools.
I still have a hard time trusting people because of it. And I'm 35.

Aside from the people I went to highschool with I've seen other people there I know but they didn't add me nor I them. Maybe I should have made the effort to add them but I guess I was afraid they might not respond.

Anyway that's my Facebook experience.

 

[cheaptrickfan]

What I find more depressing though is viewing everyones' profiles and seeing that they're having a great time in their life - that they're able to be more sociable and popular than I'll ever be.

Don't believe everything you read. I think that it's rare that people post how they're really doing. They have to keep up the social niceties, y'know.

It's like when someone asks you, in passing, "How are you?" They don't expect anything other than "Fine, thanks, and you?" even when you're standing there with a knife sticking out of your chest.

But maybe I'm just jaded.

 

[Zackarydoo]

I also get fed up seeing how happy and content everyone is on FB, but I also agree with cheaptrickfan that people aren't always as they seem. I'd imagine that the majority of people who spend lots of time there are doing it because they aren't very happy or content with 'real' life. I know that I wouldn't use it at all iif my life was better.

 

[Coverage]

What I find more depressing though is viewing everyones' profiles and seeing that they're having a great time in their life - that they're able to be more sociable and popular than I'll ever be.

Don't believe everything you read. I think that it's rare that people post how they're really doing. They have to keep up the social niceties, y'know.

It's like when someone asks you, in passing, "How are you?" They don't expect anything other than "Fine, thanks, and you?" even when you're standing there with a knife sticking out of your chest.

But maybe I'm just jaded.

No, I think your exactly right. People will put on facebook what they want other people to see and know about them. As for small talk, most people who ask how you are as they pass by dont really care, they simply feel obligated to acknowledge your existance.