I don't have to like Facebook to like Facebook. Are you with me so far?
With its upcoming IPO, the always ubiquitous Facebook will soon ratchet things to a far higher level. And unlike the mighty Google, which is a verb ("Oh yeah, that's true, you can Google it"), Facebook is a destination and therefore a noun: "I'm on Facebook."
Except I'm not.
I think I'm the last man standing on the Facebook frontier. The last guy who's not on Facebook and who doesn't want to be. The last guy, apparently, who doesn't want to connect with a ton of people from high school, the last guy without a tattoo, the last guy without a goatee, the last guy who hasn't shaved his head, the last guy with no interest in clicking a little thumbs up "like" icon besides some pithy saying for a politician or product or just some words on some guy's Facebook wall.
In short, I'm a holdout. I don't want to get on Facebook any more than I want that tattoo, that goatee, that shaved head.
Maybe it's because being on Facebook was not a good thing at all for one of my teenagers. Maybe it's the inclination toward resistance in me, not wanting to get on a bandwagon. Maybe it's not wanting to know everything that's so easily available online.
Yes, maybe that's it. Maybe I just don't want to see and know so much, so fast. Maybe I just want a quiet night at home without logging into a web site where I can catch photos of my neighbors misbehaving at the Cinco de Mayo party. Maybe I just want to wonder about something small and insignificant, like the vague general hope my siblings are happy, rather than see one of them with a red solo cup in hand, dancing on a table at a suspect location.
Facebook does a lot of things well and has the power to do a lot of good. Recently it launched an effort to connect people willing to be organ donors with families in need of organ transplants, and to do it much faster than the norm. That's a great thing.
But the traditionalist in me craves some simple things: a handshake, a letter in the mail written by hand, the first bite into a Granny Smith apple and not a picture of one.
Or maybe it's simpler by far. Maybe I'm just not the kind of person whose first reaction to news of any kind is to click a "Like" icon, not because I don't like things, but because I don't want to consistently, and publicly, admit to the things I like.
Maybe I just like a little mystery, the small enjoyment that comes with not knowing, or telling.