Finally Finished with Facebook Forever

I've ended my presence on Facebook because I was starting to despise my "real" friends' virtual lives; and my growing ire was beginning to frighten me.

In all aspects of wasting time on that generator of uselessness, Facebook was making me a full-blown misanthrope. Why? The reasons were many and include:

1. I didn't give a shit about my Facebook friends' repeated attempts at wit, political commentary, statements of love or hate, pithiness, promises, and bombast -- I liked them all more when I knew less about everything they thought about.

2. I didn't trust the "newsworthy" news I was receiving (in my desperate search for insightful explanations) whether from linked posts by my "friends," the invasive news sources (often poorly written) like Vice and News & Guts, and/or algorithmic ads aimed at Facebook's idea of my liberalism.

3. I didn't like myself as I scrolled through my newsfeed in a time-sucking search for something/anything from someone/anyone I actually cared about... only to discover that the best of my real associations have deactivated their accounts (or long ago blocked me because I was "virtually" everything I hated about everyone else).

4. I didn't want to be a stalker... and I felt like a stalker when I followed a post to an old girlfriend's Facebook page and scrolled through her "highlights" only to find myself disappointed in how she turned out  (despite the appearance that she was probably doing a whole lot better than I and the "disappointment" was in me, natch, for judging her while I was wasting my time on Facebook being the gnarly arbiter of my own crappy opinions).

5. I didn't want Facebook tracking me; and I certainly didn't want it advertising my whereabouts when I was trying, so desperately, to hide from the silently circling helicopters.

6. I didn't want to see another sweaty picture of my "friends" either working out or having worked out, preparing to run a marathon or celebrating coming in 127th place in a 5K.

7. I didn't care about what anyone was having for breakfast, second breakfast, elevenses, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and supper... and the sadly saturated phone pics of said meals had me worrying about everyone's health.

8. I didn't want to stroke anyone's ego any more than it was being stroked by all the inane (I mean "heartfelt") comments of support by Facebook "friends" (supplemented by over 100 "likes" [Isn't that the mark of a successful post?], 27 hearts, 12 frowns, and four furious faces).

9. I didn't want to judge my friends' parenting skills and their rotten children... but I still am (and I blame the parents for making their children so rotten).

10. I didn't (and still don't) understand emojis and memes... and I abhorred being relegated to using them.

11. I didn't want to read Oscar predictions; snide remarks about struggling teams and ballplayers; trite music, television, and movie reviews by people I once admired for their critical expressions but now loathe because they advertised the worst of themselves in posts posted several times a day; and date night restaurant reviews while swimming in absurdly large glasses of alcohol.

12. I didn't care about others' unfocused pictorial adventures in Italy and Thailand and I cared less about what anyone was doing at anytime in any romantic place anywhere (especially if in a sunny, warm climate while I ailed in my nor'-east winter miseries).

13. I didn't appreciate the clickbait rabbit hole and the time wasted falling through Dunderlandian absurdities of celebrities, mullets, deadly animals, and botched surgeries.

14. I didn't have the will to not click "Next."

15. I didn't understand how it was that I always received a perfect score on all those quizzes when I knew that I didn't know some of the answers; and I know my IQ is not THAT high.

And... 16. I didn't want Facebook's shoddy, shitty business practices anywhere near data connected to me even though I know it's too late to worry about what they're doing with my social e-transcript because they're already doing what they're doing with my publicly-personal information... and it's probably some insidious shit.

Facebook force-fed the worst in me with empty, electronic calories. In turn, I could no longer afford to feed Facebook with what's left of the best in me: My struggling, flailing, sputtering humanity and my REAL love for  "actual" people.