Thursday, May 21, 2009

Face Down

I'm having weird moment, and I'm also feeling rather stupid...

Like many of you, I have a Facebook account. I honestly don't use it as much as others, but I do check it a couple of times a week, and perhaps I'll play a game of Pathwords while waiting for laundry, but that's about it. It's a good way to quickly see what everyone is up to, leave a brief comment or a thumbs up, however, I'm not big on some of the earning points thing, or giving people stuff, chatting, constantly updating, etc. I'm just not that into it, I guess, although it's a good tool for finding long lost friends and family memebers. Here's my question: what do you do when someone is always wanting to chat and you just don't want to or you have no desire to chat with that person, ever? Maybe that sounds kind of brutal, since I did allow this "friend" on my page, but this friend is someone from my past. He was there when I met my husband. He's a nice guy and all, but I'd much rather keep him at a distance... a very far distance, as in the far away state he now lives in. I'm completely good with that. I'm fine with an e-mail every now and then, and perhaps a yearly phone call from him to say how the wife and kids are doing. I'm getting kind of irked because the few times I do check Facebook he chimes in and wants to chat. I kind of freak out and log off quickly. I'm kind of surprised he hasn't tried to phone me. Without me logging onto Facebook at this very moment (because he's logged on), is there a way to block him from seeing when I'm on line?

See, I told you this was stupid. It feels so high school.

We all change and grow in different directions. People change. Life changes. I'm not perfect. Blah, blah, blah. [Insert the appropriate psycho-babble here.] We used to confide in each other about everything when we were much younger, but somewhere along the line we both changed, and now, for me, just even seeing his icon on line in the chat box is like hearing nails on a chalk board... It's really hard to explain why that is without getting too detailed as to why this guy irks me.

Maybe I'm just not cut out for Facebook.


Tuesday's song:
Out Of Our Heads - Sheryl Crow - Katiefeldmom

PEACE

16 comments:

Miss Rachel said...

I am pretty sure you can go to your account preferences and have them "hide" you when you're online. I think there also may be a way to disable or hide you from the chat feature. Good luck.

Kyra said...

I haven't been able to find the hide feature anyway. I have a couple I'd like to not hear from too.

Mel-2nd Chances said...

i changed mine to be offline all the time because i had the same thing. on the bottom right corner where you see your status, click on it. that changed mine to offline. hope that helps. :D

Joyce said...

There's a "Go Offline" feature in the IM/chat button. I always have it set to that, unfortunately, because there's a "friend" of mine who always wants to IM me when I'm busy doing something else, or I just don't feel like talking to him.

Deene said...

sounds a bit creepy. or you could be his only "friend" at the moment. I would definitely check the offline option.

Glenn Jones said...

Or - you can go into your chat window and create a friend list. Only the friends that you put in that list will see you online in chat. Friends not in the list won't.

Of course, for someone that freaky, you can always block them and pretend that you deactivated your FB account...

BTW - I spend almost 0 time on facebook these days. Twitter is so much better at the whole communicating between friends thing....

Anonymous said...

Oh I'm glad I read this cause I was wondering the same thing lol :)

IzzyBubbles said...

I haven't signed up for facebook yet for this reason - some people it would be nice to keep in touch with and others...we'll I'd just as soon not ever hear about them again, not even through a friend of a friend of a friend. People keep trying to get me to sign up but, I don't know...I'm on the fence. So, I hope you figure out how to hide yourself while you're on because I can see where you're coming from!

I Run for Fun said...

Change your setting to offline. All these online social networking tools are a bit freaky at times!

MJ said...

I was all set to add my words of wisdom on this.. and then I realized I'm about 20 hours too late! Everyone else already answered me. I do hope you are doing well... =)

Aka Alice said...

I'm behind MJ...hahahahaha...that's my week in a nutshell :-)

Yeah, I always say I'm offline on FB too. Weird about the guy who always wants to chat. You'd think he'd get the hint.

Rookie on the Run said...

I haven't read all the other comments, so I'm sure this is a repeat. Go to your chat icon, click on it, the click on "go off-line". It's a great feature for when you don't want to chat.. or when you don't want people knowing how much time you really waste on Facebook. :D

Pink Granite said...

Oh my!
This is one more example of why I have yet to join FaceBook!
So glad you got some expert advice.
Good luck!

Irene said...

Thanks, everyone, for the advice! I'm glad I wasn't the only one!

iJuls said...

I am never noted as "online" even when I am on FB. Those I welcome chats with, know my gmail account (and don't abuse it).

Middle-of-the-Pack Girl said...

I've always wondered how to do that, so thanks for asking about it. I also had someone who would try to chat with me everytime I'm online too, so I know how you feel.

You could always try to "unfriend" him. Facebook doesn't send a notice to them that you've unfriended them - it'd only be when they go in to see your profile, or if they are the type to keep checking on how many friends they have, would they notice.