On social networking

For me, Facebook is a tool to temporarily assuage ennui. Depending on how interesting my Facebook 'friends' have been since the last time I logged in, I could be entertained for anything from 2 minutes to 2 hours. But besides posting the obligatory 'happy birthday' comment on the walls of people I've spoken to maybe five times in the last year, and sporadically uploading photos of my latest cupcake-baking spree, I feel I cannot tailor my Facebook profile to really reflect my life or personality. And I envy those who can.

For example, uploading photos. The process always eluded me. I don't own a camera, but this is irrelevant, as even if I did, the process of connecting said camera to computer via a USB cable is just a whole level of technical that I'm not comfortable with. I can surf the internet, use Microsoft Word, and create blogs like the best of them, but give me wires and plugs and I'm quite baffled.

Photos from others are another thing entirely. I shudder to think of the many photos floating around Facebook-space which I've untagged myself in, on the grounds of looking way too drunk or just unflattering in any other way. Friends don't tag friends in unflattering photos! I cannot emphasise this enough. (I, however, must admit to having quite a lot of fun tagging photos of random objects, i.e. cockroaches, pumpkins, troll dolls, with my friends' names.)

And another Facebook no-no: do not add people you have never met in real life. If you do, you are immediately a sex offender. Other people to not add include your boss, your ex, and your mum. I succumbed to my mother's friend request after a few valiant weeks resisting it, and now I never hear the end of it if I dare to do something so brazen as include the word "fuck" in my status update.

Another Facebook trap is the many requests to join groups and do quizzes (or start playing Farmville or that kitchen game, or join Mafia Wars...). The very bottom rung of the Facebook groups ladder is "Harriet lost her phone, give me your numbers please!" I never understood why the creation of a group was necessary for procuring lost phone numbers. Surely an email or private Facebook message would have sufficed... with the added bonus of not broadcasting the fact that you were stupid enough to lose your phone in the first place. And the very botttom rung of quizzes are those written by high schoolers. You can distinguish those as they are generally called "How 2 tell if a guy lyks u", or "How much do u luv the Jonas Brothers??????????".

And let's not get started on status updates! As someone with a keen interest in food and edible food-like substances, you may assume I'm one of the intolerably boring people who feel the need to update the world on what they ate for lunch. And I sometimes am. (I'm full of turkey right now. And pasta and prawn salad. Hey, it's Christmas.) And this isn't even considering Twitter... but to be completely honest, I often find the banality of Twitter quite amusing. But recently, I've found status updates useful for one thing, and one thing only - plugging my blog! You're probably here from Facebook, am I correct?

Three redeeming factors about Facebook are 1) events, 2) relationship statuses and 3) creating really cool groups which are closed, which people can only join if they personally request it from you, the admin, and refusing all requests.

Events is a great way to crash parties held by someone you met once at a club/went to high school with but never talked to/might be in one of your lectures at uni but you aren't entirely sure. And I can't begin to tell you how many relationship beginnings and endings I found out about via Facebook. This is especially useful if you have a penchant for playing Cupid, which I do, often with disastrous consequences. The cruel thrill of creating unflinchingly exclusive groups is self-explanatory.

Merry Christmas everyone. No entree today because I've just had Christmas dinner so I'm pretty full. Never too full for dessert though. (Unthinkable!)