Facebook

Recently, though not a joiner, I was seduced by peer pressure, media manipulation and covert nighttime chemical spraying on the part of the government to register on Facebook. Like being a little bit pregnant, I am now a little bit a part of things there.

One of my first participatory actions was to respond to a questionnaire that was circulating asking everyone to list twenty-five things that people might not know about you. Had it asked me to sit around the campfire and sing folk songs, I would have refused categorically. However, this seemed a painless exercise and I duly listed twenty-five absolutely fascinating things about myself guaranteed to impress even those to whom I owe large sums of money. It succeeded beyond all expectation and made new Facebook friends for me whom I will likely never meet, but that's hardly the point, is it?

Now, some weeks later, someone forwarded to me their list of twenty-five which, as it happened, had my own list in the thread. Reading it again impressed upon me how self-serving these lists can be. Although everything I listed was true--and no doubt extraordinary in every possible way--it really should have been called "Twenty-five things you want everybody to know about you". In other words, there's a reason people don't know certain things about you for their own good as well as yours.

Just to test this, I'll be circulating a questionnaire that will ask everyone to create and post a list of twenty-five things you hope to Hell no one ever finds out about you. Let's see if we get any takers.