And now I know why

I am historically anti Facebook, and I still am.  I just didn't know what the basis of my being against it was.

I know that nearly everyone is on it and everyone loves it and blah blah, it's just not for me.  I don't understand what all the fun is about.  Maybe I have missed the point.  I was conned into joining it.  I say conned because various people were lobbying hard to get me to join.  And no, there was no gun to my head.  I willingly made up the password and clicked submit.  I decided to just kind of see if it was interesting.  I haven't bothered to set up a profile or anything and I haven't really bothered to search out people to connect with.  I can see how maybe it is fun to see what certain people are up to, my brother, my cousin - but I already know what those people are doing because I talk to them otherwise.

My preferred means of communication are gmail chat, occasionally text messages, and god forbid we pick up the phone and have an actual conversation with one another.

If the point is to connect with people from my past - the thing about that is that if there were people I wanted to be in touch with, I would be in touch with them.  There is a reason I am not in touch with these people.  I don't want to be.  But why is that?  Why do I feel so strongly about it.

I did do a search today.  I did a search of my high school and my graduating year.  I found about 260 people 75% of which I didn't even recognize.  And then there were those that I did recognize.  Married names and photos of children.  And it dawned on me.  Maybe it is a jealously thing or it is something else that I can't find the word for.  I know what it is, I just don't have the word for it.  All I know is that I don't want to know what everyone is doing, who they are married to, that they have children, that they are happy.  I'm not interested in knowing how their lives turned out.  I don't want to know that everyone has the things that I wanted.  Other people have the lives that I thought I would have.  They have the things I wanted that I have given up on ever getting.

Sure I can say that I have a successful career but I have failed at everything else.  And I would rather not have to tell anyone that.  And I would rather not have to pretend like I am happy with the way it all turned out.  I am not interested in pretending and I am also not interested in telling the truth.

The people that I want to be in touch with I am in touch with.  My friends in AA and a few other people.  And that's it really.  I don't want to be in touch with my past because it is a painful reminder of my present.  Yeah my world is small right now.  It is contained and I am isolated and yeah maybe I need to do something about that, but I don't want to.  I'm fine really.

I remember back in the day (I say that like I am so old) nearly 21 years ago when I was 12, my best friend Heather and I would write letters to each other.  Long long letters.  Pages and pages.  We wrote letters because our parents' wouldn't let us talk on the phone for more than 5 minutes at a time every once in a while - the reason was because it was just too expensive to make a long distance phone call.  Can you even fathom that - too expensive to make a long distance call.  I wish I still had those letters.