Dear Facebook....

Dear Facebook

It seems to me we are at an impasse.  One that neither of us seems willing to negotiate our way through.  I am a fierce abstainer.  I know your aim is to connect people, and that makes me look like a snob.  But actually, I've watched family members and friends who are so attached to you, they forget to live their real, actual lives.  And they lose hours and hours of time scrolling through I-don't-know-what-garbage that other people have liked.  I don't have people in far away places with whom I need to keep in touch.  All my people are close by - a text or an email away at most.  I also don't feel the need to post events in my life for the game of seeing how many people "like" what I'm doing.  Or maybe that's just my competitive in-law family.  But I don't think it's just them.

The problem here, dear Facebook, is that you are very bossy.  You demand that I sign up.  Every time I want to read what one of my four favourite personalities have written you pop up a little screen, through which I can see nothing, that says I need to sign up to see more.  I don't want to see more.  I just want to see today's post without clicking those stupid screens away multiple times.  It's not my fault people have moved away from friendly blogs that accept anyone who wants to read them.  I have no intention of commenting or liking or whatever else people do with posts they like.  I just want to read and move on with my day.  That's it.  It takes me about 5 minutes.  Or it would, if you would stop making me click those annoying screens, and then clicking that I want to "see all" posts rather than a summary of different media that person has posted.  Quite frankly, I am starting to resent the fact that you insist that I sign up.

I have a proposition for you.  If you could remove those pop-up screens that remind me I am not signed up, and just let me read those four people's pages, we could probably live quite harmoniously.  I won't demand anything from you, and I would love it if you didn't demand anything from me.