How to Be a Facebook Failure

I am a Facebook failure. This was made official today when Facebook sent me the following e-mail:

"Dear Subscriber. That must be me. We have noticed that you have not used your Facebook account for quite sometime." This is true, truthfully, I forgot I had an account. The email continues to shame me by telling me that my friends miss me. You mean to tell me those few people who accidentally fell on my page miss me? No way. But the email continues to shame me with more bad news. I have not lived up to my potential.

My second grade teacher, Miss Itten, the one with the tightly wrapped bun of hair in the back of her head, who was also my first, third and fourth grade teacher until Miss Summerhill took over, also told me I was not living up to my potential. Fifty-five years after her declaration she is proven correct.

You got to hand it to Miss Itten she knew how to peg a kid when she saw him. Facebook is now telling me, that what she said fifty-five years ago is so true. My potential is being lost by not signing into my Facebook page. I decided it is time to live up to my potential and sign into my face book page.

I googled Facebook and got a login page. Then I remember I forgot my username and password. I try several which I do know and none of them work. Facebook now has me playing the figure out the letters in the box game. I am only winning about 50% of the time. Next Facebook tells me to take a timeout.

A timeout? What do I sit on the punish chair like my three-year-old granddaughters? How do I take a timeout? I surrender and push the "I forgot my password" button. Truth is I also forgot my username and what email address I used to set up my Facebook page with.

The first thing Facebook does is asks my question. Who was my first grade teacher? Easy, I already told you it was Miss Itten with the tightly wrapped hair bun in the back, who was also my second, third, and fourth grade teacher until Miss Summerhill took over. Maybe I need to tell more about this charming school nestled next to the lilac bushes. A one room iconic memory? No, it is a Chicago Public School, thus the bad grammar.

I answer Miss Itten and Facebook tells me I gave the wrong answer. How would they know better than me? Besides I was losing badly at the guess the letter and put it in the box game so I gave up and resigned to be a Facebook failure.

To my friends I too will miss you. Although two of you I do not know and the other one I email regularly, then there is Sophia who said she likes men just like me. Friends were the problem the first time I failed at Facebook.

The average Facebook user is supposed to have one-hundred and thirty friends. I was getting that many requests every day. Well maybe not that many but it seemed like that many. I am certain I could come up with one-hundred and thirty people I know but it would have to include groups like the folks at church, they are at least one-hundred. I cannot remember names.

I graduated high school with more than fourteen hundred other kids in my class and can only remember a few names. I have attended three colleges and seminary but again am at a loss to names of my classmates. However, my classmates seemed to remember me. My email box was jammed with friend requests from people I had never heard of.

At first I accepted everyone. This led to more problems since I was now getting wall messages from people I did not know doing things I cared nothing about. The next step was to routinely allow a few hundred to build up and reject them all. I did this s few times and realized how silly it was.

I deactivated. When you deactivate a Facebook page each of the friends names appear with a tear and unhappy face saying they will miss you. Then you get the questionnaire and before you are done one last chance to reactivate without anyone knowing your decision to deactivate.

Facebook claims more than 400 million active users with more than half of them logging in each day. People spend more than 500 billion minutes on Facebook every month and I have failed twice as a Facebook user.

My page is still active, but I am not among the 200 million who log in every day. I cannot log in since Facebook gave me a new first grade teacher and will not tell me his name. So feel free to write on my wall and do anything you wish with my page. I have failed with it and have decided to donate it to the Facebook community.