Can anyone relate to this?

[Bergerman!]

I think all Facebook users have had similar experiences... you break up, but to delete or not delete. Someone tags you in a compromising photo without asking, and your boss, SO, parent, friends see another side of you that you outgrew a long time ago. Facebook doesn't tell the whole story. It can't capture the real person behind the profile, and some manipulate this to live in a fantasy world. I only accept friends and family that I actually talk to and care about... not every member of my 800+ member high school class. My 43 friends are really friends and family in the traditional sense, but people actually think I'm some kind of outcast hermit because my list is short (by most standards). Yes, I denied my class president in HS' friend request because I never spoke with him even when he sat next to me in a class. Why should I start to give a rat's arse now?

I'm concerned at the potentially detrimental effects of social media in general. No ones true self can be captured with edited words, photo shopped pictures from 7 years ago, and the total inability to look someone in the eye in person. The friends I know personally who have 1800 "friends" on FB are also the most awkward socially in public. Try this experiment: personally meet a group of people that boast over 1000 friends online and seem to be very good people-persons based on their online profiles. Sit down, one-on-one, and try to have a spontaneous conversation with them for 15 minutes and watch how seldom they actually make eye contact with you.

I wonder why people buy beautiful, big houses but spend most of their time in these homes planted on a single chair with a keyboard or wandering around staring at their smart phone or tablets. I feel sorry for all the children who grow up with mommy and daddy staring aimlessly at an LCD screen rather than the critical one-on-one nurturing all children require. Or, will the new generation simply follow their primary caregivers and develop into healthy, happy people via virtual, online attention and affection?

Social media is good in that it does keep us in touch with friends and family more easily and conveniently... but is it becoming too easy to just meet in an edited, manipulated and secretive world where you never have to look anyone in the eye, and can ignore and disguise the quirks, flaws and mistakes that can't be hidden in the real world (proving that we are still, in fact, human)? Is it too easy to just pick another toy from the pile when the toy you fell in love with 8 years ago doesn't look as pretty in person as sooo many novel and attractive photos and profiles you see everyday? Nobody posts the picture of themselves sick in bed, or with a big pimple, or of a waist that reveals you tend to overindulge during the holidays.

Fortunately, I'm still much better in person, and you do have to actually be there in person to get laid!