Yeah, it can be a pain in the ass, and completely addictive. I use Facebook to keep in touch with friends in other places, which frees up my email accounts for other important things, like sp@m. As well, I have a couple of work-related groups and orgs on Facebook because they new trend is to go where our users are, and our users are increasingly on Facebook. (Can you tell I just got back from a conference, and am still full of geekspeek?)

Seriously in regards to socializing, I echo your comments. Ironically I have found myself in “job” (market manager) where a great deal of my “work” is socializing. I have often stated to Steph that I am very lucky to have gotten this job as I have met and “socialized” with a vast cross section of the public, in all strata and situations. Whereas had I pursued my “professional” career path I would not have met the diversity of individuals and my outlook would be even more narrow than the tunnel I currently gaze through. Jesus,, the council thing is even worse as it is often “hostile” socializing….more of a whipping boy thing…facebook smasebook….I should not be so harsh I only have a passing knowledge of this meduim…and have little desire to be educated further…

mayby you should run for your local municipal council phillip…that would assist in the socializing…make sure to ask for manilla envelops…that way the other great unwashed can not make out the denomonations in the envelope…I often tell people at market this in response to some inane request…my fellow councillors if present flee in percieved terror of some scandal…the world is strange…despite my pleas no one has given me an envelope full of unmarked bills…yet….

Tom, I have no desire to be at any events. That’s not why I signed up to Facebook. I avoid most events as it is. I like people. I just don’t like large numbers of them, especially when they’re packed into a small space where I have to yell into the ear of the person standing next to me for them to hear me — which describes the majority of events I’m invited to. I’m sociable, though most people I work with probably don’t see it that way because I’m absent from so many “events.”

Socializing as an adult has always seemed like an odd thing to me. How do people socialize if they don’t go to bars or drink? Eliminate those and you eliminate 90% of the socializing that occurs outside of work.