RESTORING MY FACEBOOK IMAGE ONE FRIEND AT A TIME
By Bob Vickrey                                                   

February 6, 2011

I’ve just spent my first full week on Facebook after much chiding from mostly younger friends who convinced me that I might as well go live in a cave somewhere if I wasn’t participating in the new social forum. Knowing that a modest-sized cave anywhere on the Westside sells for the high six figures (even in a down market), I decided I better crawl on board.

However, I’m afraid to report that after spending almost a full week on this Internet site, my house is a mess with unwashed dishes cluttering the sink and my poor dog Ruggles just stares longingly at his food dish.

I was warned this might happen, that I might miss meals, go a few days without bathing, and forget to pay my bills. But being the regimented and organized person that I am, I was certain I could not possibly fall into such a trap. I was wrong.

Once I signed on and followed the fairly easy instructions to set up my page, there were 41 people waiting to ‘friend’ me. Then I remembered that someone had told me months ago that I was already on Facebook and I had inadvertently clicked on the wrong button when someone tried to recruit me. I’ve since found that most of my older friends had also become card-carrying Facebook members completely by accident.

Of those 41 people, I knew roughly six of them and I felt terrible about not inviting the others onto my page and over to the house for dinner on Saturday night. I’d already been warned to be tough and choosey about friends.

I asked myself what people would think when they looked at my profile and realized I had only six friends in the whole world – half of them faceless because they didn’t know how to download photos.

So I mounted an aggressive campaign to bolster my sagging online image. By Tuesday—‘Day Three,’ I had canvassed most of my friends through my address book and email list with the full ferocity and intensity of a PBS pledge drive. I could almost hear the evening host saying, “Come on now, we only have two more hours to enlist your support to keep Bob’s Facebook page up and running. So, hit that ‘friend’ button now! Vanna would you please tell them about the gifts they’ll receive with that pledge.”

By ‘Day Four,’ I was consciously making note of people I spotted in the village that I hadn’t yet contacted. There’s Arnie. I know he’s an easy target and he’d feel guilty saying no to me. As I scanned the room inside our local coffee shop for familiar faces, I realized I’d already sent invitations to all but one of them. Who was that guy in the corner anyway? Should I go over and introduce myself? No, of course not. I really must get home and fill Ruggles’ bowl because it appears as if he’s lost some weight this past week.

By ‘Day Five,’ things were looking up as I was gaining steam and realized this campaign was in full motion. I could barely keep up with all the ‘yes’ votes coming across my screen. How else could I read these results? I took this as a full endorsement of what an incredible guy I must be. I felt like the winning candidate on Election Day, or as actress Sally Field famously said while accepting her Oscar: “You like me!”

As the week progressed, I barely left the house and friends began to call asking if I was okay. They informed me that I had missed several meetings and lunch with the guys on Tuesday. I had fallen into the dreaded trap that I’d been warned about—that black hole of Facebook known as the ‘friend of a friend.’

The ‘friend of a friend’ plunge was how one pal described the seemingly innocent act of jumping from your friend’s page onto one of their friends who looked much more interesting than the guy you had initially signed up—even though you didn’t have a clue who these people were. It might be a fetchingly beautiful woman, or a wholesome family picture that draws you in. One evening I found myself staring for a half hour at this handsome family I’d never met and admiring their newly born ‘Baby Ethan.’

I’ve since snapped myself out of the daze and corrected some of the compulsive behavior I’d exhibited in those first days, such as hounding my pals to join in the fun. But honestly, I didn’t just want to increase my number count. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed an exciting week in this exhilarating new experience and I simply wanted my friends to share it with me—and of course, have their first glimpse of Baby Ethan.

Bob Vickrey’s columns have appeared in the Houston Chronicle and Ft. Worth Star-Telegram. He is a member of the Board of Contributors for the Waco Tribune-Herald and a contributor to the Boryana Books website. He lives in Pacific Palisades, California.