10 Things We Never Worried About Before Facebook

1.  Forgetting the birthday of someone you haven't physically laid eyes on in twenty years or more.  It occurred to me this evening when I logged in to stalk people, and there was a reminder that today is the birthday of an old high school acquaintance. I actually felt a little pang of guilt about not posting the one hundredth obligatory "Happy Birthday" on her wall until I remembered that back in high school, we never really hung out together.  I never wished her happy birthday then, so why would I now, when I haven't seen her in twenty years?  Still, I feel as if I am doing wrong by ignoring that little reminder up there in the right-hand corner...

2. Photos.

• Having incriminating photos show up online that we didn't even know someone had taken. 
• Documenting every occasion (or non-occasion) to make sure all our friends know how attractive we are, how beautiful our children are and how sexy our spouse is.
• Worrying about looking unattractive, fat etc...in pictures of us on FB--because we don't want people to get the wrong impression...

3.  Keeping count of our friends and categorizing them according to how close we are and how much we want them to know/not know about us.  Before Facebook, we just were.  People at work knew us by how we presented ourselves at work.  People outside work knew us as how we were away from work.  Now, thanks to FB, everyone wants a chance to know us in our entirety and that makes me (for one) a little uneasy.  I'm okay with not being bosom buddies with everyone at work, and I certainly don't need my boss browsing through my pictures from the weekend.  See above.

4.  Keeping everyone we know updated on where we are and what we are doing, as well as whether or not we are enjoying ourselves--complete with photos.  As if everyone having cell phones weren't enough--always being reachable no matter where you are and whether or not you want to be bothered, we now voluntarily check ourselves in to places so everyone will know where to find us and come bug us in person.  Makes no sense to me, but I do it!

5. Getting Fired.  I have personally known a couple of people who were fired for posting gripes about their jobs on FB.  If your boss is your FB friend,  you probably shouldn't complain about how dumb your boss is on FB, but people do it without even thinking and then...well, they get that dreadful call into the HR office...

6.  Disagreements between friends about religion and politics.  I remember the good old days, when you attended a party, had a few drinks, shared a few laughs and never got angry at the guy sitting across from you because you kept thinking about that insensitive and completely WRONG comment he posted yesterday.  Let's face it, the Facebookless world was one of harmony and bliss because we didn't know everyone's opinions about everything.

7.  Being Unfriended.  Who ever thought of such a thing?

8.  Updating our Relationship Statuses.  As if Single or Married isn't enough, now we have all these other choices, such as "It's Complicated."  Who ever wanted to put so much thought into describing their relationships in one or two words in the first place? 

9.  "What will people think of me??"  We worry about what people will think if we aren't in a relationship, what they'll think if we are, what they'll think of our hairstyle, our clothes, the company we keep, the parties we attend, the car we drive...Now, it's not enough to say that we don't worry about all this stupid crap without FB, but WITH FB, we worry about it ten times more because we share ALL of it with EVERYONE, including pictures.  "What do you mean, lick the spoon?  What will they think on Facebook???"

10.  "Does anyone even read the shit I post?  Do they even care what I think?  Probably not.  No one reads my posts...I mean, I only got 3 likes and that was a pretty good joke..."