My online friendship deficiencies

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Nowhere are my personal deficiencies more clearly exposed than in trying to manage our now ubiquitous social media. Most people I know are on Facebook and participate avidly.  They have Twitter feeds.  They up and downvote things, write comments on blogs, post photos on Flickr, and, in general, polymorphously interact with huge numbers of other people.

To me, it all seems a little too much like work. I open up Facebook.  Tiny faces of various people I know, have met, or have confused with someone else appear, with their pert comments on their meals, their flight delays, their opinions on global warming, their daily word count. And below each of those are people responding to those comments, with an affirmation or an additional observation...it makes me tired just thinking about it.

I know I need to do participate, if only for professional reasons ("Hey!  Buy my book!"), but even with that brute goad, I do it only reluctantly and fitfully.  Today, for example, was a beautiful day, so I worked in my garden and read a book outside. I even dozed off in the sun. I'm telling you, because I'm making a point, not, like, actually telling you that I worked in my garden today, because that doesn't actually tell you much of anything--except that I was out of contact with everyone except my immediate family.  I might have answered the phone (landline, if you must know) if you called me, but not even a guarantee of that.  I did have a fight with my wife about money, so perhaps I should skip that immediate family thing too. It doesn't always work out that well.

Many people my age, and significantly older, are participating fully, so I don't even have my advanced years as an excuse.

So what gives? A mandarin disdain for current trends? An eye to the eternal? Smug, above-it-all arrogance?  Early signs of Alzheimer's?

Any and all of those things may be true, but the real reason is laziness.  Modern society is just too demanding. I love you all, really I do. But save your news for your annual Christmas letter.  If you send it a few months late, as is only proper, I might have time to get to to it.  How interesting about Junior's new braces!  Sorry about the job!  My, haven't they grown!

That's really about my speed.