About ten years ago I joined facebook. Everyone was doing it. I even heard on the news yesterday that the guy in charge is one of the richest in the world, and I helped him to get there. At the beginning I was telling people when I went shopping, apologising for not being around because I was shopping and even telling people when I had a headache, but that was at the beginning. Of course I had a real life, like the lady on the photo, but I had a laptop so could take it wherever I went.

If I was cooking I could still do it, stereo of course. It was a short journey from the computer to the cooking range. One day I woke up and realised that there was a real life out there and who was interested in my little problems.

Today I see this all with an amused laugh from a distance. There are grown men that are telling me what they are doing all day, what they buy and there romantic life. And the mothers and grandmothers that are bombarding me with photos of their babies and little kids do not seem to have better thing to do and do not realise that there are some watching with no good intentions. Worse are the followers that spur them on with their ohs and ahs.

Now it is Christmas and I am sure that I will be peeping into the private sphere of many families gathered around the Christmas tree opening their gifts. In the meanwhile one of the victims is showing me what he is cooking for Christmas and on Christmas day I can even share his turkey and salmon hors d-oevres. What a shame the smelly  computer has not been invented.

I also had to learn it. Suddenly you slip unawares into  a confenssional. I even read of family arguments, romantic break-ups, personal moments that really do not belong in public. And me. I still belong, I am perhaps the worst of all, because I am the observer. I have a quiet laugh to myself when I read what the others write. I crosspost my WordPress blogs on my own page under another name. I have some followers there, but they do not often look in and that does not bother me. I had to learn that you do not tell everyone about your private moments, because there are some that are watching with negative intentions.

And Facebook itself? They are telling me daily to increase my public (by paying for it of course) and to tell my story. I have a story, we all do. But that is classified. I no longer post photos on Facebook, and rarely pass comments. It is classified information.

FOWC with Fandango: Classified