Things That Make You Go Hmmm

Every now and then on One Lucky Soul an article like this comes along. It seems more like something you would share with a friend over a coffee, or in the office during your colleague’s smoke break, or even over the phone with your besty. But since I don’t do any of those things, and since the last nine years were spent far and away from almost everyone I ever knew, I take to writing.

Four years ago I got to know a nice guy from the Venice Beach Drum Circle and as with many others from there we became friends. This includes Facebook and Instagram. One recent day it occurred to me that I haven’t seen any of his posts lately; when I checked both their profiles they weren’t there. So I assumed he deactivated them for a reason or the other. I genuinely asked the rest of the group about him, if he’s alright; to which I was told that he is indeed available online. Long story short, I had been blocked: On Facebook and Instagram — I didn’t even know the latter was possible. 

This was quite the surprise knowing that nothing happened between us. I’m currently in Egypt, so by nothing I mean no fight and even argument online. I kept thinking why would that person just wake up one day and block me, on both platforms, but haven’t reached any convincing possible reason. 



You see, blocking is not unfriending. It’s like you really don’t want anything to do with that person online, ever again; as if they do not exist. It’s odd when it happens between those who knew each other well and got along. Why allowing anyone get you to this point of blocking is still beyond me.

When going back with my memory, I recall saying in a comment in our last online interaction: Some of our fantasies are there so we can make them happen. Or something general and philosophical along these lines. So again, no argument, and not even a confrontation, like say The Ashram Sweeper Who Blocked Me on Facebook or even Blocked by an Anonymous Facebook ‘Friend’. Undoubtedly nothing. I wonder what went through his mind. Actually to this day my psychophilosophical mind remains quite curious to decipher such behaviour.

Another possibility is that he’s a rather shy man who gets nervous to make eye contact with strangers; also when people use profanities, even online. So maybe, just maybe, my free-spirited, often comical statuses about sex and orgies or maybe even full articles about spicy topics are too much for his virtual existence. But what a drastic reaction that is — especially for someone in his 50s. I truly have no idea.


I am walking in the street and there I see a young women I’ve known since childhood coming towards me. She unnaturally kept looking at the ground as she walked pass me. I didn’t stop or say anything and just kept going. It’s been years since we last saw each other, so I was reluctant to act and the whole thing was too fast. An hour later I wrote her a candid private message on Facebook asking if it was her. Ten days later, and still no reply, none, not even ‘seen’; even though we all know that it could have been read anyways. Thing is, she is active and not like offline or away from Messenger.


Between both happenings, as you may have known, I flew to Los Angeles only to be stopped by Homeland Security and interrogated and searched like some kind of criminal. And even though my U.S visa was still valid for two full years I was denied entrance because I have been in the country for too many times in those last four years. Not only that, but I am not allowed to be back for five years; however this could be waived. So I did nothing illegal, yet was still punished because… I don’t know: The system is screwed. Now more than ever, of course.

As with almost all experiences I go through, a full piece about that nightmarish experience — which I am mid finalising — is due. So stay tuned. 


Oh well, it remains almost impossible to know what people think or why they act in certain ways, especially with us, and especially those we think we know. Because we tend to assume. Life, however, does go on. At the end, our actions reflect who we truly are; people’s interpretations of them reflect who they truly are. I guess the best thing to do when dealing with such instances is to just smile and say, Hmmm.



ALSO VIEW:

The Ashram Sweeper Who Blocked Me on Facebook 

Blocked by an Anonymous Facebook ‘Friend’

The Joy of Being a Wanderer and the Credit Card Number
   
A Dollar & Thirty Four Cents in Me Pocket and Feeling Fine 

Personal Questions I’m Often Asked and Their Answers

The Bloke Who Thought I’m Too Much of an Alpha Male

The Girl Who Wouldn’t Share Toilet Paper

Not Sleeping With a French Hooker at 14

The Day I Became Bill Gate’s Elevator Boy

The Spell of the Topless Redhead 

The Night We Turned ‘Beast Mode’ On

The Night I Became a Stripper

Placebo Effect & The LSD Prank

The Joy of Being a Wanderer and the Credit Card Number

I Kissed a Grandma... and I Liked It

When Lady Ran Away

When The Puppies Ate The “Chocolate” 

OLS Reflections 46 — Facebook Edition Deux

After OLS Reflections — Facebook Edition, here is the sequel. As mentioned in Part 1, since Facebook has become the main social media outlet for most of us — 1.94 billion monthly active users as of March 31, 2017. Seriously — it certainly invaded our everyday lives and relationships.

Amusingly, while looking for a featured photo for this article I came across a bizarre warning. First I thought it must originate from a humour site. But when I clicked I found an article titled: One in five American divorces now involve Facebook, which is linked to another article by the Daily Mail. The number is according to a recent survey by the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers. This simply reinforces the notion of invasion and is a direct reflection of how things have become nowadays.

The following are more Facebook-related statuses from the past six or seven years.

1- We all have that friend who’s too cool to have a F.B account.


2- Nothing has brought me more joy than a few old friends connecting me on F.B with their children because “my posts are useful for them”.


3- No one really cares who you worked for in 2004 for you to plaster it on your F.B profile. Stop labelling yourself, emancipate from your attachments to the past, and move on.


4- When you send a private message to a F.B friend and it shows that it has been ‘seen’, how much time does it have to pass before you consider it gone from maybe they’re driving or teaching or mid-having sex to I’m being ignored.


5- Some people don’t befriend their parents on Facebook because they think it’s too much privacy invasion. I can only understand this logic in case you’re a stripper.   


6- Back in April 2007 when I didn’t know how things worked, a couple of the posts on my wall were simply: “Is dominating”. Assuming that my name is right there so no need to write it again. But others did that too. In fact, a guy I know still does it today.Also, when friends wrote on my wall, I would also reply on my wall; after some time, I’d reply on their walls, before finally understanding that this was what comments are for.


7- I find it a little weird that some people who are in their 20s add ‘CEO’ to their Facebook profile. Unless you really work for a major corporation or organization, CEO doesn’t really suit you if you own a flower shop or a design store. Does it maybe give them satisfaction to be identified as such? And what happens when they reach 45.

8- By observing people “checking-in” places on Facebook those last few years I came to the following conclusion. There are 3 types of those who do that.

One, they are happy they arrived at a place and want to let friends or acquaintances know they are there so they can possibly meet, as a way of letting them know they are there.

Two, and those are a minority, are the people who check-in to get a free drink or as a way to get into a party.

Three, are those who do it to brag and attract attention. Usually, this type checks-in at airports, nightclubs, hotels, or even places in other countries where they don’t really know anyone and there is no one to meet.

This last group needs to self-combust.


9- I can usually tell that couples have separated or gotten a divorce when all F.B pictures of one partner are of them alone with their children and some of the pics are cropped.


10- Do you know what’s really missing from Facebook? The option for me to ‘like’ that you ‘liked’ something I had originally liked. Pff.


11- It is funny how those last three years Facebook has almost become the only connection with my previous life. All my friends and family back in Egypt and the ones scattered around the globe. Even with e-mails, we wouldn’t really know each others’ news like the case with Facebook. Through it I also met a lot of interesting like-minded people. And although I disagree with how it's managed and how it's trying to monetise the whole thing, but one has to say that until now the idea itself is quite the success, especially in the case of those who travel. I’m sure it’s also a success in the eyes of the CIA and all the surveillance entities. Glad we’re connected fellow Earthlings. Peace and Love. (Nov 7th, 2013
)


12- Sometimes people argue with me online and then edit their comments multiple times, significantly changing what they are saying or their tone. I assume they do not know that the “Edit History” is shown to everyone — Though the ‘edited’ button which use to show back then has been relocated, but the option is still there.

13- When I comment on someone’s Facebook posts it means I like them. When I comment with sarcasm it means I really like them.


14- It’s been a sad couple of days for some of my Facebook friends. All of sudden they just lost over 35% of their sight and now they have to use an extra big font to communicate with us.


15- Be Careful of Who You Add on Facebook. Five days ago I received a friend request from a girl I don’t personally know but with 50+ friends in common I foolishly accepted. Almost automatically, she sends me a private message:

“Hi, what’s your e-mail?” Again, not suspecting anything, I gave it to her. After a full day without receiving anything on my mail I asked a common friend about that girl. We assumed that she might need me for a work opportunity and waited another day but still nothing. So I wrote the girl asking: “Anything specific?” My message was ‘seen’ but no answer for another 2 days. I got suspicious and told my friend again, and this is when she remembered that her friend’s account got hacked a long time ago and that it might be the hacker. She also warned her friend and told her what happened. Apparently the account was indeed hacked a few years ago but for some odd reason she never reported it!

16- What if I told you that God doesn’t have a Facebook account? If you believe in an all-knowing, all-powerful God, then you should also believe that He can listen to the prayers you whisper to yourself. Of course if the purpose of publicising the prayers is to gain attention and/or sympathy, then that’s a whole different story.

17- Facebook Psychology 101 - Facebook Philosophy 101

I’ve noticed a repeated pattern regarding some of the people who have 3500-5000 Facebook ‘friends’: As the number of friends increase with time, they choose the option of not showing the number on their profile. I think it’s because it comes apparent by then that those are not real-life friends and that they probably befriend just about anyone. This, of course, is not the case with ‘celebrities’ with large number of followers or pages affiliated with them, but regular folks.

Another related observation is that in some cases you find that the list of ‘friends’ largely consists of members of the opposite sex — that’s in case it is still visible. So for instance a female with 4000 virtual friends, males would make up something like 3600.

On the other hand, there is a minority of people who for some reason happen to have actual 3500-5000 friends whom they more or less know. Those, however, usually do not feel the need to hide the large number.

Bearing in mind that more than one billion people are currently active on Facebook, I think new fields of study like Facebook Psychology and Facebook Philosophy should become a thing. These additions would certainly help Earthlings in better communicating and in better understanding each other. And in truth, I would be more than willing and able to be among the pioneers.

 

18- Whenever I check someone’s Facebook profile to find that they had recently friended 47 new people I often wonder how they managed to “meet” all these new “friends” in a matter of a day or two.

 

19- We’ve got to give it up for Facebook for always striving to make their users more friendly with each other while remaining connected. Adding the “snooze for 30 days” option after years of only ‘unfollow’ is quite the smart move. Whether you unfollow people/groups/pages for excessive postings — about politics, religion, New-Age mumbo jumbo, sports, commerciality, babies, whining, selfies — or due to ignorance, bigotry, superficiality, it’s sort of a permanent action. That is, if you don’t feel like the more dramatic ‘unfriend’ or ‘unlike’. ‘Snooze’ on the other hand is a temporary break.

See, before this somewhat novel option sometimes you would manually refollow an account only to find that their first post to plague your newsfeed is an uncanny reminder of why you had unfollowed them in the first place; so you are compelled to re-unfollow them one more time — probably for good. Snoozing, however, is gentler: It gives you the chance to reevaluate the posts in your feeds once every single month. Maybe they’ve changed, maybe you have. Not bad, Facebook, not bad at all. (2023)

ALSO VIEW:

OLS Reflections — Facebook Edition

Things I Never Told Anyone

More Things I Never (Really) Told Anyone

Even More Things I Never (Really) Told Anyone 

Funny Drug-Related Stories

Funny Drug-Related Stories 2

Funny Hotel-Related Stories

Little Things I Recently Learned

OLS Reflections Setenta e Cinco — The Dazzlingly Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections Settantatre — The Flagrantly Unfun Ones

 

OLS Reflections 71 — The Frightfully Unfun Ones

 

OLS Reflections Sixty-Six — The Outrageously Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections 64 — The Dangerously Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections Sessantadue — The Scandalously Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections 60 — The Sensationally Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections 五十八 — The Shamelessly Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections Fifty-Six — The Notoriously Unfun Ones

 

OLS Reflections Dreiundfünfzig — The Playfully Unfun Ones

 

OLS Reflections Cinquante-et-Un — The Corruptly Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections 36 — الطبعة العربية المرحة 

OLS Reflections Treinta y Seis — The Wickedly Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections — Facebook Edition

OLS Reflections — Facebook Edition Deux

OLS Reflections ثمانية وعشرون — The Tranquilisingly Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections पच्चीस — The Soothingly Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections Venti — The Quiescently Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections Siebzehn — The Peacefully Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections Quatorze — The Mitigatingly Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections Dodici — The Appeasingly Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections Девять — The Pacifyingly Unfun Ones

OLS Reflections Seis — The Mollifyingly Unfun Ones

Blocked by an Anonymous Facebook ‘Friend’

I’ve had this anonymous person on my friends’ list on Facebook for the past year. They added me to many groups, before they themselves suddenly leave the group. Eventually we came to have several friends in common, mainly from those groups which the rest of us stayed in.

At the very beginning I once asked them if they are in their 30s or 40s, to which they said 30s. With a little bit of virtual interaction, it was apparent to me that due to their level of maturity they are probably in their 20s and cannot be older.

One striking feature regarding this person is that they are always, always online. Either compulsively posting every 10-15 minutes, or engaging in comments on those same posts — mostly with absolute strangers. Even with different time zone, they seem to always be around. And I’m certainly not the only one who could see this, but others were saying the same — joking about the possibility of them being a robot, or an alien. At times it was a tad too much as my feeds were hijacked. I often had to either unfollow for a few days to get some peace of mind, or choose to show less. That’s of course in addition to the good ol’ “stop notifications” in case I ventured and commented on one of their posts. 

This makes you wonder if some folks have any life outside of Facebook; also if spending their entire time seeking attention and validation from strangers is caused by a certain emotional hunger. You know Internet addiction is a thing; each ‘like’ and ‘message’ notification releases Serotonin in the brain, which is precisely what happens with drugs. Social media nowadays is indeed a new addictive drug.

On a similar note, Are You Addicted To The News? is an earlier piece of mine, explaining why millions and millions of people are literally hooked. Also check this Huff Post article about Facebook addiction in particular in which the writer explains how to “Facebook Diet”.

However, apart from the sudden emotional ups and downs, this virtual friend seemed like a genuinely good person. Probably it’s the reason why they may be my only Facebook friend whom I don’t know what they look like; not even their real name. I usually find hiding your identity online to be absurd. Just because they could be anyone. A 55-year-old bold, fat man in a greasy white flannel could be impersonating a mid-twenties brunette, or anyone else, really. There is no way of knowing.

But again, despite being repetitive sometimes their posts were mostly alright. Also due to what they have gone through during their youth, there are legitimate reasons for their slight instability. So I was fine with it and was open to help out with any insights they may find useful.



Then just recently they posted about how they were banned by Facebook for posting too much or ‘liking’ too much — being banned is a common thing for them. As a merry, related reply, I wrote that despite the fact that they are online most of the day and night, which is common knowledge by now and not a secret, Facebook shouldn’t be allowed to interfere; I also added a smiley face to assert the humour bit. Next thing I know, they ‘liked’ my comment and replied with a couple, one of which about my own comment not being funny.

Until then, that’s a normal human interaction between two people online, let alone F.B friends for a year. I would have probably written something else to ease their mood and that should have been it.

I checked the comment afterwards and it said it cannot be seen. I thought they deleted the comment and possibly also their reply — something they had previously done... twice. This occurs with me sometimes when people online get too insecure and sensitive and take things personally due to a sarcastic joke or comment; a reason why I only use sarcasm now with fun, secure, open-minded folks.

In general, I noticed that since I have been writing for years, people often take what I say/write too seriously. As such, I don’t comment that much anymore on Facebook. If I do, it’s because I somewhat like you and don’t think you have complexes, which allows me to be myself without any filtering or editing.

When a couple of minutes later I checked the post itself I couldn’t find it either. So what? They deleted the entire post because of one comment they didn’t like? A tad too much, I thought. But it does happen. In actual fact, they had unfriended me once before along some of our common friends then apologised the next morning and re-friended us. That said, they are obviously a bit unstable.

And THEN, as I’m checking their profile l realised that I have been blocked. Ta-Da. Like, “Out of 1 billion people on Facebook, I don’t want to share this virtual realm with you anymore because of a singe joke/comment which I did not fancy.” Okaaay. Ironically, stuff like that actually kind of boost my ego and make me feel important.

Like the Ashram Sweeper I wrote that article about, I have been blocked. Though this time it’s not after a two-day long debate about theology, Sufism, and psychedelics and not with a total stranger like that sweeper. But rather, it is someone I have interacted with frequently for almost a year — including many private messages covering many private matters.

Said extreme reaction tells us something about the nature of that person. They probably saw some truth in my comment, because, again, it’s nothing hidden. But to get so worked up to the point of blocking me right then and there only shows that something is amiss; it equally shows that a significant degree of insecurity is involved. Whatever it is, I certainly wish them well. I also hope that one day they’ll gain the will and ability to deal with the real world outside of the screen of their phone or laptop. 


Just like how some of those virtual relationships develop further and people get to meet in real, others are bound to remain superficial before they dissipate. It is a clear reminder of why I rarely add people I don’t know and how the ‘following’ option seems more fruitful. This person’s erratic, volatile, immature behaviour also sheds light on what Facebook addiction may look like.

ALSO VIEW:

The Bloke Who Thought I'm Too Much of an Alpha Male

The Joy of Being a Wanderer and the Credit Card Number

A Dollar & Thirty Four Cents in Me Pocket and Feeling Fine  

The Couple Who Couldn’t Handle My Honesty

The Girl Who Wouldn't Share Toilet Paper

Placebo Effect & The LSD Prank 

OLS Reflections — Facebook Edition

Are You Addicted To The News?