Biko, Stop Calling Me On Facebook!

For a blogger – especially a lifestyle one who shares her life online – I have a love-hate relationship with social media. As you know (or maybe you’re new and you don’t know), when I started blogging, I was semi-anonymous. I blogged with my real name, but I never showed my face. There was no picture of me on the internet either. I know this because I searched very frequently. I used to do posts about what people searched for on Google that made them land on Verastic, and searching for my picture was one of the top searches. Read this post and this post and this post.

Anyway, there was no Twitter and Instagram when I started. I think there was Facebook. So back then, “sharing” content on social media wasn’t really a thing, and a part of me liked that better because this sharing thing na gu’m ike (is tiring me). I did not have to be on all these social media channels to promote my content, and I was not virtually running around like a headless chicken because I was trying to catch up with my sharing duties.

Then I joined Facebook. On Facebook, I accepted every friend request because most of the people adding me were Sweet Potatoes, so I did not mind at all. The problem with that was that I quickly reached the limit of my Facebook friends and I now could not add my in-real-life friends. So one day, I just closed that Facebook account and started afresh. With my new account, I’m back to my own habits. If you add me, I will accept you. Right now, I have 1552 friends, and maybe I know like 20 people in real life. The only difference now is that I am just as generous with my Unfriend button as I am with the Accept button.

So where am I going with this? Well, the thing is that I love being connected as much as I hate being connected. I am not in search of any new social media accounts to join, and if you wish to contact me, I’d honestly prefer email over direct messages anywhere. But if you have to contact me via social media, biko, I take God beg you, do NOT call me on Facebook. I think that’s just the weirdest thing. When the two borof us are not socializing on that level, why would you start your introduction with a Facebook call? And some people even call with video ooo! I’ll be balancing on my toilet trying to leave my frustration in the commode, and next thing, someone is video-calling me. Ogini [What is it]?

As I write this now, I have almost 200 unread messages in my Facebook inbox. The higher the number rises, the more inundated I am. How am I supposed to read and respond to all those messages? In my defense, I don’t intend to respond to most of them because they only have one line in them that say something like, “Hello, beaurriful …” or “Hello dearie….” … or “How was your night?” … and I’m not feeling any of these people have something to actually say to me. Next thing now, they’ll ask me where I’m based. Or if I’m married. Or why my husband let such a beautiful wife be on Facebook by herself. Ajuju [Question]. I can’t make these things up.

The point is that as much as I like sharing my life online and connecting with wonderful like-minded people, I prefer to not be called on Facebook. Speaking of Facebook, I don’t care how many platforms they put that “Stories” feature on – it’s currently on Facebook, Instagram, and What’s App – I’m ignoring them all. NOPE. I’m struggling to tell Facebook what is on my mind, and now they want me to tell a whole story? Na so.

P.S. You’re probably tired of me apologizing, but I’m really sorry for my sporadic posts lately. I have been BUSY.