<p>I think facebook can be managed fairly well once you figure it out. I click “Ignore” on almost all the quizzes. You have to scroll over to the right and a hidden button will appear that lets you hide it or ignore it. You can also hide people that post too much or are too annoying, even though you are friends with them.</p>
<p>Helen- I think your neighbors are just strange and I would let the dust settle. The old high school buddy needs to be un-friended probably.</p>
<p>Don’t forget our CC facebook group, all. We’ve enjoyed sharing by friending each other. So far there have been no “issues”.</p>
<p>I guess that’s the crux of my problem. I don’t want to spend time figuring things out. Also, it’s not a privacy issue; it’s a “people I like obviously have more time on their hands than I do” issue.</p>
<p>As far as asking kids–my S hasn’t been on FB for years, and my D uses it very rarely. They look at it as something old people spend too much time on. I tend to ask my unemployed, time on her hands sister, but she’s the one sending the chug contests and gifts (and she keeps saying she knows not to send them to me, yet, there they are on my page, anyway.)</p>
<p>My youngest is the one who told me that you can “unfriend” someone and they won’t be notified. Most people have hundreds of “friends” (I have about 50 - LOL) so they don’t notice you are gone.
I ignore most of those inane quizzes and games. I just don’t have time for it.</p>
<p>I can’t stand when people get political or religious - either in their status (I ignore them all equally) or in a comment to me - I usually will delete the comment.</p>
<p>I use the message feature to occassionally send messages to all of my kids at once - it’s good for planning holidays/trips etc.</p>
<p>There is so much subtext here, it’s hard to know where to begin, Helenback. You are right to give this some attention.</p>
<p>What would prompt that comment? Who knows – insecurity, a little persecution complex, need for validation from her “friends” as well as husband publicly, but in any case, she hung you out to dry.</p>
<p>I would be very wary of this neighbor, Helenback. If she can spread a negative spin on something you said to her friends on FB, she can sure do it in the neighborhood. Neighborhoods can sometimes get pretty hostile over misunderstandings like this.</p>
<p>I think I would reactivate the FB account, check the ‘latest’ on her comment, and then love-bomb her. “Oh, you know, I meant you just look FABULOUS, and I am totally jealous of that beautiful curly hair.” <3 <3 heart heart flower flower and all the other icons at the end of your post.</p>
<p>Oh, and I would avoid the husband like the bubonic plague. She’s vulnerable, this one.</p>
<p>^^^^I did ‘lovebomb’ her with a “oh honey I could never hate you! I was kidding” Except now I do kind of hate her. I think next time I walk the dog I’ll stop over and tell her. Oh, wait. </p>
<p>I momentarily reactivated my fb account to see what came after that, and her dh wrote “yes, it was a total compliment.” which probably isn’t helping anything. No comment from her. I guess I just struck a vein of craziness that I didn’t know was there.</p>
<p>I’m not worried about the other neighbors–she never talks to anybody and they all know me well.</p>
<p>I did have my privacy settings arranged so that I wouldn’t show up in searches. All I can think is that I popped up on his page because he has my e-mail address and it sometimes suggests friends for me from my e-mail address book. I have three friends from the younger generation because when their parents friended me then I guess they saw me and decided to friend me. I can’t imagine why other than they’re just trying to have the most fb friends. </p>
<p>I will say I think this whole fb thing is going to get weird. My 2 nieces and my nephews–all elementary students–now have fb. If they’re friends with their college cousins, isn’t it going to be weird for them to see pictures of the drunken college debauchery? I wouldn’t want my younger boys looking at that. </p>
<p>So yes, I’ll be gracefully avoiding my neighbors. They can borrow that damn ladder from somebody else. </p>
<p>I have more than 600 FB friends, and have only run into 2 problems. One mentally ill acquaintance added me to the people whom she has vendettas against due to her paranoid traits. She started sending me nasty e-mails, and I blocked her.</p>
<p>Another person – a friend of a friend-- whom I friended after she asked me to friend her made a snarky comment in response to one of my status updates. I immediately unfriended her.</p>
<p>End of the problems. </p>
<p>Otherwise, Facebook has been a delight, and I’ve thoroughly appreciated being able to connect with and share perspectives with so many people around the world.</p>
<p>There’s no reason to quit Facebook due to problems with people’s posts. Just block (which means they can’t e-mail you or see any of your posts) them and/or unfriend them.</p>
<p>I had one strange thing. A bunch of my high school classmates are rediscovering each other, which has been fun. Even people I wasn’t close to back then are enjoyable now on an adult level- especially ones who still live in our hometown (which I don’t). Anyway, one woman friended me (I barely remembered her, to be honest) and I wrote a gracious note saying “Hey, great to reconnect! How are you doing?” She wrote back something like, “Well, the only reason I am reconnecting with you is because my parents have moved back to the area and were asking about your parents since they were good friends back then.” I thought this was a little rude, but I replied about the status of my parents. Shortly after that she un-friended me. Another classmate messaged me and said this was sort of normal behavior for this person. </p>
<p>I am a pretty open person (obviously) but find I have to be careful sometimes and remember just how wide my audience is when I post something. I need to consider co-workers, running friends, church friends, CC friends etc. One of my internet running friends chose to post some pictures of her own very-defined abs. I thought this was a little odd, although she is quite proud of them. My daughter called me and said, “Who is that woman with the scary abs?” I didn’t realize my D could see the pictures even though she isn’t “friends” with that woman because I had commented on the pictures and my D is friends with me, so could see the pictures I commented on. It was pretty hilarious. Just sayin’…</p>
<p>I just realized that I can’t shut down my facebook because I really like to play Banagrams on there. </p>
<p>If you like FB games you should check it out because it’s really fun.</p>
<p>You can also buy Banagrams and play it at home. It’s like Scrabble for idiots, which is perfect for us. We always end up shrieking with laughter when we play, and it’s great for any age.</p>
<p>Before I pretty much stopped with all the quizzes, I learned that my ideal career position was “President of the US” and my Grey’s Anatomy character is Izzy Stephens. So- we should have Izzy Stephens as POTUS! I also learned that my son’s career should be “Mechanic”. My first reaction to that was to wonder why I was paying for Penn. My next reaction was to think he could probably earn more money than he might when he graduates from Penn next year!</p>
<p>I’m so glad I found this thread. FB seemed like a lot of fun until all these faces from the past started popping up. I’ve finally figured out the privacy settings for myself but what bugs me is that my friends can post pics that our mutual friends can see…like the one when we were at a party having a couple of margaritas. She’s so open that I’m sure she doesn’t have privacy issues!</p>
<p>I’ve told my kids to watch what others may be posting about them - come time to apply for colleges, you never know what cyber stories and pics could be floating out there!</p>
<p>HelenB, your “friendship” w/the neighbor guy most likely struck a nerve w/his wife even though you also befriended her. A friend of mine found out that her DH had shared many things with his “friend” online. She was offended that he chatted more with his friend than his own wife. Hey, maybe they’re your neighbors - lol.</p>
<p>What a stupid stupid waste of time and effort. Either you have real friends or you don’t. They should know where to find you. The rest—what a silly waste.</p>
<p>I did hear a good Facebook story. A former co-worker just had herself defriended from her husband’s page. Seems he has other interests that are none of her business in his opinion.</p>
I used to think this but now I disagree. I have friends and family that live very far away geographically. (mostly Europe, some Asia and some far away in th USA). Facebook is a fun way to keep track of what is going on in each others lives. We do have other contact with each other of course. But I am finding it a lot of fun with facebook to keep up more with their day to day lives as I would when we were closer geographically. My brother (who lives in England) was the one who got me into it when I was visiting him a few weeks back. We are more in touch because of it. In fact he has the flu right now - hopefully not the swine flu (they haven’t picked up the H1N1 name over there) which I know because of his facebook - he wouldn’t phone to tell me something like that.</p>
</p>
j/k</p>