Making a name for myself on Facebook

ACCORDING to research that I can’t be bothered to find, never mind verify, if you’re not on Facebook you’re a psychopath.

Yet I have gamely resisted, for years now, without recourse to psychopathy — although you’ll have to take my word for it. To misquote Meatloaf, I would do anything for work, but I won’t do that.

Until now. At last, I have been worn down. It’s as if all paths lead there. Social events, campaigns, demonstrations, photo shares, who has broken up with who, who has had a baby, got a new dog, moved house, changed job, went to a gig, lost their keys, had toast for breakfast — if I want to know anything, I need to join up. But goddamn it, I don’t want to.

It is through gritted teeth that I get myself a Facebook page thingy. It used to be that people would ask if you were on Facebook, the way they’d ask if you had sugar in your tea — some do, some don’t. “I’m not on Facebook” was considered reasonable until the whole world got on it, and assumed you were too.

Now, when you say you’re not on Facebook, you get that slightly pitying/eye-rolling thing from friends and strangers alike. People sigh and mumble something about emailing you, even as both of you know they never will.

So I’m on Facebook. But I can’t bear to be, so I’m doing it under an assumed name. The idea of giving willingly all that non-erasable information — names, dates, places, hobbies, interests, events, likes, dislikes, occasions — seems like a massive spooky con to me. Even as a non-conspiracy theorist, why would you tell everyone everything? “Oooh, it’s a great way to stalk people,” says a friend who spends hours doing exactly that. “You can meet up with people you haven’t seen for years,” says another. Why would you want to do that? There’s a reason you haven’t seen people for years. Why use Facebook as a jumplead to restart acquaintances long dead?

Anyway, it turns out it’s dead complicated. Even by calling myself another name, my computer can see through me, and keeps sending me people it thinks I might know. It also keeps asking me to tell it how I’m feeling, and what’s happening. Within hours, I have seven Facebook friends I’ve no idea who two of them are. One of them has been to the doctor and had an unpleasant medical procedure which I now know all about.

The only aspect I am remotely interested in — uploading books and music — I accidentally delete and cannot undelete. And because I put in that my year of birth is 1906, the computer keeps telling me to ‘like’ stuff I hate, like Downton Abbey, because it thinks I am 107. This would never happen on Twitter.