The ‘Other’ Inbox on Facebook; A Love Story

To wake up, rather suddenly, on the sagging side of 30+ can be quite traumatic. Even more if it happens on a morning when the maid informs you that today’s Delhi Debate in Vrindavan Park near Mother Dairy-gate of our flats saw most maids agreeing that I was so much prettier when I came here 6 years back – just married, fresh face, long sensible hair, always threaded brows, etc. Her unabashed comfort in revealing such truths didn’t stun me as much as, well, the truth. Which being, my body and hair and face and younameitdammit are undergoing constant … evolution, to use a nice word. 

The conversation grew roots in my head and remained there like a teak tree with big leaves keeping all light of reason and reasonable analysis away from the freshly formed idea of a maid-rejected Self. Meaning, no sense of self, at all. I was provoked to think, look back, call my husband to ask his ‘You’re the most beautiful woman I have ever married!’, sift through my wedding albums and message my husband again for a contrariwise-to-maid’s-opinion in text as further substantive evidence. But for the maximum solace to an injured ego, I logged in to Facebook, my magic mirror on the wall, just like yours. 

Professors of Secret Sociability on Social Networks tell you how the vainest put display pictures, collect likes on them and then scratch those numbers on a wall of fame in their houses called ‘Fuel for Narcissism’. I am one of them, on Facebook. (No, not the Professor. The other vain variety). 

So, after sending the nth message to my husband and finally receiving a reply back (‘Honey, I'm off for a very important sarkari chai break now’) I had no other shoulder to rest my injured head on and I logged on to Facebook; the underwire that supports you on your lowest days. That’s when it happened. While I was still doing the math as to how many total likes I have got on all display pictures put together, dividing them into columns of known sources, known-but-untrustworthy-sources and unknown-thus-more-valuable-sources, I noticed something by sheer coincidence. I noticed a folder called ‘Other’ in Facebook Messenger and opened it. 

That’s the exact moment I realized how wrong the maid was and how I was measuring my waistline with the wrong tape. That’s also the exact moment I fell rose in love, all over again, and this time with multiple men. Yes, as many as would fit in a Trojan Horse before I pushed it down Mount Etna’s golden gurgling mouth. All out of love, and for giving it irreversible permanence, thus. 

You want to see what keeps this old wife’s heart’s strings playing tra-linga-ling?

Isn’t it just lovely how this kind man hunted me down like a true seeker, found me and finally addressed me by my surname? Wht’s mre! He’s an aspiring wrter 2 lk myslf. Immediately, I felt connected on this side and on the other side of all sense too. He also intends to forge a most unique bond of friendship – one that motivates and one that inspects. In advance he shows such gratitude already for a communion yet to be made that my starry eyes wonder what’s in store for me after the raid is over, the inspection done and dusted, and the X-file closed. 

Not all bodily references are bawdy. Certainly not those which are also your centre of gravity. He called me like he would a French nun who quit the habit to marry a Monsieur (which was a breeze of fresh air compared to the ‘hi sakkuu’ I received just before this). So novel the address concocted that I wonder how novel the just-released novel will be! I would have liked to tell him how I too was hoping to write a book with my esteemed end but how, after Kim K’s revelation, it’s sitting put on strike, asking to be let free from the purdah system permanently with a year’s supply of oil.

A love note so close to my heart that on the crappiest of days I turn to it to realize what I see as shit surrounding me is not. This man charming has with such keen observation skills painted a picture of me that my husband could borrow some leaves or rox from this mode of expression. What can it be except trew lowe in the eyes which notice how a woman mixes colours optimistically, thus leading him to (big word alert) believe in her – as a messiah to deliver mankind from the ugly, unruly life of glamor-without-a-u. U being me, here.

I wish I could meet this man, one day. He looks nothing like Robin Sharma or Shiv Khera but see how he cares if I’m happy. Just how many people ask you that? How many, tell me? Oh, and he feels too. You see, he looks beyond the externals. He simply sits blindfolded on messenger waiting for harmonic signals of charming women to reach him. That’s when he pings to tell ladies such as myself giving us hope for things beyond the first horizon of friendship. Ahem!

Many others have come and gone. Many keep coming and coming and coming till the number, of messages, is mind-blowing. There all all kinds. One just left a “gud morning happy thandi thandi morning” and froze all conversation since I saw the message too late. Others have pockets full of posies, like this one “Hii... Gd morning.have a nice wednesday.''Yeh duniya kahan hai dosti ke liye,'par kahan se waqt nikalta hai dushmani ke liye'' and then fallen into a drunken stupor where even Thursday rhymes with 'liye'.

Sigh. 

So wanted by the opposites I feel, such divine calmness too, that if I were to die this moment I would be reborn as a Best Seller Balm 30+ – a relaxing, warming elixir to rid you of all aches and pains - right from your heav(y)ing bosoms to your revered ends. 

And just as suddenly, I am left with no more complaints for today.

Oldies Online and a Silly Switch

Mickey Mouse in his modern Clubhouse has a Silly Switch, which is essentially a multi-coloured lever with an ‘up’ and a ‘down’, the handle pilots use to fly planes faster in the storm when snakes, aliens or terrorists hijack them. Now, when this silly switch is switched on in this Clubhouse, silly things start happening all around. Think of H. E. Wilkinson’s poem ‘Topsy Turvy Land’ and multiply it by 10. That silly! Loony hell breaks loose. Tea pots start dancing, pairs of shoes elope and gadgets develop a mind of their own. The only thing that helps is finally pulling the lever down and stopping the silliness. 

While someone from Mickey’s brigade manages to do that sooner than later, it seems the young blood of today wonders if a Goofy has pulled the Silly Switch lever full way up in the world of chubsy-tubsy Oldies and their newly found retirement plan - the Internet. I will explain, but first some background. 

If we were to calculate the number of old people socially networking and those in queue waiting for the password to come to their minds from two hours ago, I am sure we will arrive at a mind-boggling figure. Those lovely pastimes of yore like gardening, knitting, sewing, walking and staring into infinity on park benches are gradually making way for a new found love lovingly called ‘doing the Internet’. Of course, there is a time for everything so surfing the web will probably mean post-medicines and after Philips Top 10 re-runs, but can be adjusted before cleaning the dentures, because teeth we don’t need in the www. So progressive, futuristic and so very cute! 

That is exactly why the youth of today are not amused.

With children either settled abroad or as far away as is needed to keep nostalgia alive but trips back home expensive, parents running free and wild online are becoming embarrassing, time consuming, reputation-downing and even heart-breaking for the sons and daughters of the said hexa-hepta-octa-genarians. While the old men and women were unavailable for comment (it must be www time), I spoke to some youngsters on why they seem so disturbed with their parents opening Gmail accounts and ‘coming on’ FB, for instance.

Says a 28-year-old woman (name withheld) working in the private sector – ‘My mother started using the internet a few months back. I was home for a holiday and for the first time ever she was more interested in ‘learning the net’ than rolling besan ladoos for me.  I opened her accounts, made the necessary flow charts, painted the CPU button red so she could locate it and came back to my working life without home-made achaar, ghee and nighties. My train was yet to reach when a Facebook notification said she had posted on my timeline. My moment full of pride turned dreary when I read ‘You have left two bras and one matching panty hanging on the clothes line. Please buy new ones. Only cotton, okay? Make sure you check the elastic. Bye Chunchun.’ At that moment, my phone lost signal. Needless to say, going back to office was a feat worthy of a bravery award. Clearly, she had not understood the concept of a private message. Still hasn’t. I catch her publicly having a private gossip conversation about a third party on the third party’s wall. How silly is that! No, I am not going home for Diwali this time. She can anyway email me spam forwards on how to keep my skin glowing, how to be a grateful daughter and how to find the right match. That is, if she is not posting them on my timeline.’

Zach (name forged) a 19-year-old college student shares his experience with utmost honesty, spiky hair and a hole in his jeans. ‘My dad is becoming an internet addict, man. It’s beyond me why he doesn’t want to read the newspaper any more, or, or talk to his other chums or something about cricket or whatever. It’s like every time I see him he’s sitting in front of the computer, with his nose touching the screen. Gosh, what could he be up to? I saw him on Twitter the other day. A ‘RampModelGal’ was talking about types of balls and he was discussing cricket with her. To think that my coach from school follows him. Shucks. Help me, man. I worry for him. He even sent a ‘namastey ji, have a blast ji’ to Savita Bhabhi thinking she’s his office senior’s wife celebrating her 50th birthday. He even accepted the invitation and RT-ed it when she said ‘my place, tonight ji.’ I am so screwed. To top it all, he will reason it out with me why this is the same Savita who I rode when I was a baby by poring over her picture. WTH, dude! He just doesn’t get it. Get him off!’

The Silly Switch is fully up, indeed.

Horrifically silly tales of oldies on the web can be heard from all corners of the world. A hypochondriac woman had a mild anxiety attack when her son screamed at her for getting a virus into the system. In the US of A, a man confused Google Plus with his insulin injection’s name and forgot he was yet to take it. He had spent 4 hours joining well-being communities there. A woman who won a spam lottery got so over-excited that her coronary arteries made her faint, come to, faint, come to and finally faint in the neighbour’s driveway. She could inform her friend only after gaining consciousness.  

This is not all. Oldie BPs are rising sky high looking at how impolite the youth of today are (even error messages are better mannered) refusing to troubleshoot ageing parents’ www-problems in the dusk of their lives. ‘Sorry, I’m busy’ is what the children have to say in answer to simple questions like ‘where is the key to the keyboard?’ and ‘Shared your diaper pics on your timeline. How do I tag my kitty friends now?’

Youngsters are not amused. Why else will they even refuse to respond to their parents’ calls beginning with a merrily innocent ‘Whatsapp, puttar!’ with no net-strings attached? Last I checked, such abused children were looking to form an underground organization for finding Mickey The Mouse. Why? To turn the Silly Switch down, of course. 

Disclaimer – Age is just a number. Do not take offence. I speak from the horse’s mouth.



[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - Sorry, I’m busy - Tell us about a time when you should have helped someone… but didn’t.] 

Orkut and my wedding anniversary

I received a goodbye mail from Orkut yesterday, the first social networking site I had bungee jumped into sans any strings attached to my teenage feet. Having failed to keep itself as popular as other sites, Orkut was shutting shop and with a letter titled ‘Farewell to Orkut’ I was being invited to collect half my virtual lifetime’s worth of archives to store in a Zip folder and preserve, perhaps, for a day when it will seem antiquated enough to be material for personal museums. Or maybe, because some of us have memories all hues attached to our presences, our identities and our relationships on that site, and which deserved space in our present and our future too. 

I do. And to be honest, Orkut’s retirement has saddened me.

Not that I have been there in the past few years. I live on Facebook, where most of us do now. So, much like an infidel, I too have found greener, more fun pastures to work and network through; enough to gradually forget passwords once created by a much younger mind and beyond the memory of this older one. But you know how, so often, certain objects no longer as significant as they were in our past lives get pushed back into drawers only to be found on a spring-cleaning day, or when a serendipitous reminder of it from unseen hands drops into our letter box? That is what happened yesterday, for that farewell Orkut letter in my inbox came like a steam engine roaring me awake to stories I had become too busy to even think back about. 

Of how my friends removed all Capricorn cobwebs from my old-fashioned mind and conspired to open my Orkut account for me. I needed to be where it’s at, according to them. Over guffaws and word-play a password was decided which I noted down, oh fear of forgetting and stupidity combined, on the front page of a diary – like a label we fix on a child’s almanac in bold red. Thankfully, a kid brother is called exactly that for a reason, and my giggly girly life and times on Orkut continued without prying eyes, till the password acquired maturity of thought, and my practices on the site grew away from child-like curiosity to a carefully contained way of expression becoming of a 20-something. Thankfully, by then I had met enough new people to call friends, joined the requisite communities of schools and colleges and bribed enough with cuppas to write glorifying testimonials for me. Thankfully!  

Because somewhere around that time, I met my husband. On Orkut.

A crazy coincidence of a common friend spotting me in our hometown later he sent me a ‘scrap’, one which he refuses to acknowledge even today, putting on me the ‘blame’ for having sent a friend request too, which actually, he did. I swear! But we were in each other’s lists now. All else (and everyone else too, much to their chagrin) lay forgotten as my Orkut time flowed like a river towards him, and him alone. We made up for all the kind of talk we never did when we continued prudes in school together, stealing glances but mostly squabbling over assemblies and toilet duties. Over messages and comments, we discovered each other, and how we had grown away from what we were. Some Suns later phone numbers were exchanged, and a quickly planned cup of coffee too. After four cups of which, during which time we kept falling a little more in love, we got married. So clichéd, but true!

Of course, the wedding ceremony was not on Orkut. Which reminds me, we turn seven in a few days. And the timing of bye-bye Orkut knocking on our marriage anniversary date brought back memories tinted pink, and also, a lump in my throat. So strange, but true! 

There is more brouhaha about social networking sites than genuine ha-ha on them now. Established researches as well as those born out of a day’s mood advice, almost implore us to not be tempted to remain online too long, cut ten hours to five, five to two, or leave, deactivate and never come back to live a longer, wrinkle-free life. Schoolmarms are defining ‘optimum’ usage, mothers of under-age users ‘the right behavior’. And I agree, for there can exist a dark underbelly to updates shared and relationships forged, or forced, in spaces like FB. And it gets tiring. Exhausting, to keep the hellos up and smiles aglow. And hurtful to learn that what seemed real was just fluff for another. For if forged and forced begin with an ‘f’, so does faked. After more than a decade of enjoying my virtual networks, how unfortunate that days preceding this post shows me how true this is. 

And then I wonder to myself how is it that I continue so happily socially networking, never annoyed with another’s over-doses or wary about my own? Meeting people, making friends, tooting my horn and tom-toming like an over-immune-to-censure cheer girl too? Is it because I believe good things become better and dreadful things less dreary when shared? Yes. Or does FB take away the lonely from alone days and thus gives me company? That too, yes! But most of all, as I sit and seek answers to inexplicable behavior patterns in my virtual life which never reared their heads in the days of Orkut, I wonder. 

I wonder if we other our evils as we blame a website like FB for ruining relationships, and not ourselves for never having genuinely meant to forge them. I wonder if nonchalance and intolerance towards another on www is a photocopy of our attitudes outside of it. I wonder too if the excuse of ‘familiarity breeds contempt’ through four albums of a friend's holiday pictures online was relevant in days before the internet when people lived not just like next door neighbours but as family too, crossing over rooftops to borrow dry red chillis or cups of sugar. And I wonder if we want to walk an extra mile to keep, to preserve bonds which do for sure get formed, or lose them all to what fashion asks, lobbies demand, or the queen of a club commands!

Gone are the days of gay abandon and fuss-free minds that Orkut stood for, for me. Of interest in interesting people, or boring boredom itself away. Of a virtual avatar whose behavior no one measured in a petri-dish. Of finding strangers who became permanent friends and translating a foe into a husband. Perhaps, once upon a time we bothered to make amends. To make peace. Talk, hammer, order, order, objection sustained or over-ruled, but sorted! Whereas today, we simply press ‘delete’. And right after that, sign a declaration proclaiming the 101 ways in which FB could be your death.

Just wondering. Anyway.

I remember I dilly-dallied with his proposal seven years back, when Orkut was alive and kicking and not waving goodbye. All ifs and buts that could be born were given birth to, and voiced. My greatest fear remained that our relationship would change with time. And instead of saying ‘Oh! It won’t. Please don’t worry!’ he had said ‘I assure you it would. It would change to exactly what we want it to become!’

He was right. 

I will miss Orkut. Perhaps, this wedding anniversary I will get that O-shaped cake to cut which our friends almost got for us then. For now, time to download a truck-load of the best online memories to pickle and preserve, for even they are changing shades as time goes by. 

Imagine what magic the aroma will create when my son opens the lid, someday!

Pout-detector Selfie-taker

Pout – verb - push one's lips or one's bottom lip forward as an expression of petulant annoyance or in order to make oneself look sexually attractive.

Pouty - adjective, I made.

My parents never understood my pouty behaviour since I was three. I think they got me all wrong. All along!

In class five I would pout at the head-taller guy from next door who got us home-made pickle instead of my favourite candy and they got the pout all wrong. I would go to the club and pout at one uncle’s drummer son, class seven, playing a lifeless tune and they misunderstood my pouty lips. Again and again, and countless number of tender-aged times. Finally, packed me off to a convent, where the hems of skirts met the elastic of socks and skin was a bad four letter word, after ‘pout’ that is. Oh, I didn’t stop pouting! In an all girls’ nunnery convent there are more reasons for a 15 year old to pout than God will ever know or Heavens get to see. 

What a bad childhood.

But all that seems to be from a Stone Age past. Today, much like the Blue Stocking Movement of yore, the lips have found their own revolution. Say, the Red Lipstick Movement. It has spread like jelly set wrong, or not set at all. The camera in the phone holds the mirror up to your soul lens up to your mole, and all you have to do is click. Save Share that DIY Selfie face for viral eternity, often making such luscious expressions even the camera battery gets wet dreams. So, just like the British suspected trouble the moment two men collected to pee and discuss politics on the road-side, so you can expect a pouty selfie soon as three giggly girly lips come together, posing in front of a phone camera I mean. But all this you know already, if you too, like me, live on FB (activation-deactivation-‘where is he?'-grand comeback included!)

Lets talk technologi technologee technology, not really my forte but I do know the green wire stands for peace on Earth and black one to remind me I’m a live wire even with my black dress on. Hear on! 

Young India is not just collared and wired and earning fat bucks (and voting and posting pictures!). The youth of today is always in the fifth gear. The B/W picture of Contentment (man sitting on an arm chair in his verandah in a baniyan, scratching arm pits and hearing flies flutter) no longer pleases them. They compete till kingdom comes, hard! Cutting throats for not just plum postings, corner offices and cushy cars but even to declare to the world’s winds in Alia Bhatt’s voice that ‘I love my baby lips muah muah’ and that I am always ‘Lakme selfie ready!’ Posters for ready reference below.

Therefore, due to such competition the selfie situation is quite tensed, and all cameras and phone batteries are feeling the heat, listening to ‘lens lens in my phone, who’s the pouty-est on the globe’ and God forbid if the answer is as unsatisfactory as the pseudo-elevation of a push-up whose straps have lost elasticity. God forbid, but then, it always is. 

In such days where pouts are vying to occupy selfie space, necks sprained into kamasutric positions to make nose hair hide itself, eyes going smoky and doe-like and windows to a thirsty soul, we need our two hands free to come to our self-service. (Oh not that way, no! You get me wrong!) No longer should we need to finger the camera button. So, I speak to software developers to create what we can call Pout-Detector Hands-free Long-lasting Selfie-Taker (dictionaries can revise their meanings of ‘selfie’!) Much like a smile-detector, but who is smiling? So, the moment the lips start moving towards your own image in the phone camera, the phone takes a picture. It is the highest form of self-love, the aspiration to kiss your own image (and God won't mind for man was created in His image) and look good doing it too. This deserves the biggest brains ever born to work on it. 

And when this software is invented and installed, what larks! 

Here is my phone resting between my floss and my tooth-brush, and there it detects my pout and clicks me in multiple poses – hands in just washed hair, hands in hair combed front, hands in hair combed back, hands cupping the cheeks, the chin, the … you get the point! Or when you are cooking pao bhaji, trying to get yourself in the frame with mashed potatoes drowning peas all bubbling in the pan, you place the phone on the steel utensil rack, pouting with a buttery intensity. It will love your bebbe lips, and hands – holding ladle, holding the two handles of the kadhai, closing eyes and smelling aroma. Clickety click it will go, detecting the pout on its own. 

But then, what about Equality, our favourite idea? 

I demand equal representation of all kinds of pouts in the pout-detector software. Equal representation. (Remember my childhood I just shared above?) Pouts happen automatically too and so many are asexual in nature. Like when watching TV without specs you may pout. Or when constipated (try!). Or when Arnab Goswami is being his real age, or even AAP? Then the pout we make when we go ‘tch tch’, or the exhaling one when in pain while getting a tattoo. How about the one which delivers lungular smoke up into the clear skies and even the one which we make to remove hair strands from our chin with plucker? The phone should be able to detect and preserve all kinds of pouts - sexy as well as asexy. No sexy-ist bias please.

Okay, I am suddenly all alive with my own brainchild.

I am sending this article to Rajiv “butter skin” Makhni of the cleft chin gadget guru fame. He will understand what I mean. Only yesterday I read this piece by him, recommending best phones for selfie taking. In him I will find a nodding head when he reads this. Perhaps, he will call divert me to the right people who will, like me, see that the next big thing needs to be Pout-Detector Hands-free Long-lasting Selfie-Taker (in whichever order their lips please!)

Muah!  

[Written for WordPress Daily Prompts : 365 Writing Prompts. The prompt for today was - The next big thing - What will the next must-have technological innovation be? Jetpacks? Hoverboards? Wind-powered calculators?]

Just Be and Let (F)B

Many years back, CNN came out with a list of 12 predominant personality types on Facebook, a researched reminder of why some people can get on your nerves and how strangers can become the best of your friends. The fact that a whole study was carried out on FB goes to prove that one, FB is a phenomenon important enough for a respectable research to be carried out on and two, at least a couple of generations have to co-exist on FB for the research to chart out no less than a dozen personality types. So as of this minute, one, I am happy to be a member of this important phenomenon for many years now, and two, I feel one with the millions who are not robots, have cheap internet connectivity and friends enough to “be on FB” and hence a part of this research.  

Now, the 12 FB Personality Types listed by CNN were – The-Let-me-tell-you-every-detail-of-my-day-bore (self-explanatory), The Self-Promoter (holidays, poems, writings, causes), The Friend-Padder (add, poke, add and make friendship), The Town-Crier (I RIP 1st!), The TMIer (my sex life is yours etc), The Bad Grammarian (the ‘lemme fone ya’ variety), The Sympathy Baiter (I have a headache *sob sob*), The Lurker (evil intentions?), The Crank (spewing hate, only and everywhere), The Paparazzo (posts your party photos and his even more), The Obscurest (today’s update ‘if only …’) and The Chronic Inviter (games, quizzes, polls, more games). 

I have been a chronic FB updater, poster and poser for nearly 2 years now (my 400+ ‘friends’ will confirm that, even the ones who ‘un-friended’ me for this, my OCD). So much so, that when FB launched the ‘Promote’ button I realized that God and Zuckerberg were giving me another medium to reach the zenith of FB usage, which, clearly, I had not reached yet. Alas, if only it was free! So well, in the process of posting, sharing, uploading, liking and super liking, I came across every single type of personality mentioned in the list above. However, I also met (along with many others who messaged me their experiences for this article) a 13th FB Personality Type which is present on FB, equally interesting, but which finds no mention in the 12 well-researched ones above. I call this discovery the Neo-Narcissist. 

Poor dear Narcissus, I apologise! How we drag you into our lives and throw you around as an abuse for self-obsession (when it was simply self-love you suffered, and pray, what’s wrong with that?) Be happy now, albeit in your grave, for the new age Neo-Narcissist is here to take your place on social networking sites. You were only obsessed with your own reflection in the pond, Narcissus. This one here is obsessed with many others’ reflections too. But borrow your name I will, for what is found in Neo-Narcissists is an obsession with others’ selves only to validate their own righteous virtual existence – something like othering onto others the secret “crimes” of the self, and feeling exclusive in the meantime, all on FB that is. Now, these Neo-Narcissists are a mixture of all the above 12 types of personalities, of course, with a complete sense of denial or feigned ignorance of the same. Their claim to fame is them being the sole proprietors of The-Nth-Degree-of-Just-Right-FB-Usage. Let us see what it takes to maintain this halo, vis-à-vis the 12 types mentioned above.

In a Neo-Narcissist’s life daily detail sharing and self promotion happens, but with a selective VIP ‘customised’ audience (um, just give them a call?), the Crank-iness merges with the Obscure side of the personality sometimes to spew venom in a ‘guess who?’ format (obviously looking for eyes and ayes?), and Bad grammar comes in handy when combined with need to seek Sympathy about the “ma lyf’s borin bro!” Paparazzo and photos are around too (set for ‘public’ viewing often) but just the right number/week (what mathematical ability), and Lurkers most definitely they are, for how else will they know who not to be on FB, how not to post on FB, what not to share on FB and how to make their own thesis on ‘How to be a Responsible FB-er; A Study’ a best-seller as good as Chetan Bhagat’s? And then, as another day on FB draws to a close, thoughts about how all others remain irresponsibly networking social beings with no sense of private-public act as Brasso for shining the halo and making the Neo-Narcissists sleep the satisfied self-annointed sleep that optimum FB posting is made of.

And we need to get a life, even if it spells ‘lyf’! 

Here’s what I think. 

1. There are swarms of people on FB right this minute sharing parts of their lives with who they call their ‘friends’ and who they want to call their ‘friends’, and some others sitting around, watching, cringing and spoiling their health over them for doing that. Why? Strangers sometimes turn out to be the best of friends while those you thought were close to you sit grumbling like a steam engine at every updated profile picture of yours. Some of the best relationships are about to be formed, the happiest faces ready to be shared and the proudest moments rearing to seek attention! Why not? 

2. We carry banners and tattoos and attitude and ideas of freedom of expression, freedom to be, to say, to seek, to express and impress. Should the virtual world of FB not be included in the thought process? Is it too much to ask for, for something as casual and fun as dear old FB? It’s your account and your story-telling, and you should have the freedom to tell it your way. Isn’t it? Think, who is to decide how much is too much? Isn’t it a relative concept equally valid for depth of necklines, strictness of laws, what TV shows need to be banned and what traditions need to be rejected? What happened to the idea of Free Will? Or is it only government intervention on our right to use our fee wills which upsets? 

3. What about the role of perception and reception in all of this? For instance, is it possible that my humble holiday update is just that whereas it’s you who sees it as bragging? Or that Mr. X’s latest car photo is sharing of a hard-earned moment of joy whereas you judge it as classicism? Or the one sitting and sharing every minute of his life on FB is that introvert with no friends in real life but at least a few hundred on FB validating his life and his self for him? 

It’s time to call it a day! It’s time to take a break, not from FB but from judging the way others like to exist there, or on any other social networking media. Believing in ‘different strokes for different folks’ kills prejudice and gives you good health! And you know, while the person who got ‘like’d for updating his world on FB about how Oreos taste best when dunked in milk is sleeping a good sleep, the 13th FB Personality Type simply went to bed suffering from pointless indigestion!

In the meantime, check out this tee I got  - free size, for the price of free. FB is everywhere, and it will never fail to fascinate me!