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I have to do it. I'm sorry. I've put it off for months. I've told myself I should not write about it. That I should put it out of my mind for good. That the subject has been beaten to death by millions of us blogger types all over the overcrowded and puffed up blogo-verse-osphere. And yet there it is—a shadow of a thought. Lurking like a small furry chipmunk at the edge of its dark little chipmunk hole in my mulched and weeded beds, curious to poke its head out, but at the same time shy and self-conscious and worried I'll chop it's little fucking chipmunk head clean off. Or that Honey will eat him.

I'd like to think that God had the best of intentions when he created chipmunks. But even God has days when he feels a little ornery, and all he feels like doing is kicking back and letting off some steam. So he invites Old Scratch over to his place and they smoke a couple of bowls and play a little XBox. And, over a heated game of Madden 2010 (they get advance copies of software) they think up ways to piss people off, or ruin Jason Lee's career. And the next morning God wakes up refreshed, clear-headed, and alone, and he goes to his window and sees what he's done ... that now there are chipmunks. Or Daschunds. Or people who drive Hummers. Or ... Backstreet Boys. And he just shakes his head and curses Old Scratch and decides he will love these things anyway.

I am on the verge of this kind of mistake.

Do not do it, says my Rational Side.

This will shame you.

You will regret it.

You will feel cheap and dirty.

Oh, Rational Side. You are so clever when you betray me. You and Irrational Side are in cahoots, aren't you? You know that the very arguments you use against my behavior will eventually send me hurdling frantically toward it.

You are a Brutus.

Fucking backstabber.

Geez, man. Come on! What's all this build-up about? Have out with it already, Dave!

Okay, okay. Sorry.

It's Facebook. The big "FB." The cherry-filled donut, moist with gluteny, glazed goodness. The turkish delight, lightly dusted with powdered sugar. The raging shot of Patron, warm and smooth, at 2am. And I hate you, Facebook. With all my heart I hate you. And yet I can't ignore you. I can't stop eyeing your pages. I can't stop myself from checking you once or twice or thrice a day to see if one of the 75 or so friends I sit amongst has posted some morsel about what they are up to so I can pop it back and swallow it without really tasting it. FB, you've turned my friendship with these people into some kind of non-stop tapas meal. Only it's one where most of the time is spent watching other people eat. Because real communication, real meals with substance, rarely occur.

I think Jeff said it best in one of my favorite posts by him when he refers to yoga as "the Facebook of physical activity, an anesthetic for life spent next to people without ever really communicating."

The people I'm friends with on FB are generally people I know—or have known at one point in my life—fairly well. They're people I've shared common interests with. I think with the exception of a few, they are people who I've known "in real life" before I knew them "online." And it's great when I get re-connected with them. But then, like some massive yoga class, there we are, inches from one another, all getting off on our own thing, finding our six chakras, discovering our power animals, and not really talking or even acknowledging each other.

Let me be clear: I'm not pointing any fingers here. I'm just as guilty of this as anybody. (All I usually do on FB is re-post the things I write here.) Nobody's at fault here. FB just works this way. It's kind of what the medium encourages: for us all to become voyeuristic spectators of each-others existence. And who am I to judge that kind of thing? I mean, I keep a very public blog in which I sometimes talk about my very private life. Why? I'm not sure. But here's an attempt to figure it out.

The thing is, I feel like I want something more from Facebook. To me, the value of FB, or any other online social-networking tool, should be to bring us back together in the real world. If a person is not somebody I'd realistically hang out with in a bar or a coffee shop, then I don't see much point to seeing them every day on Facebook. But what about playing games, Dave? You don't have to be best friends to play a game of Scrabulous with somebody. I could see where the games would be sorta fun for people. But I never liked Scrabble when it was something you played on a board, so I definitely do not want it on my computer screen. I do see some value in being able to share book and movie interests. But even with that, it's really not about communication is it? People rarely actually write anything about the movies or books they list. So the recommendations lack context. What they lack is a conversation.

Basically, here's the central irony I've found with FB: Sometimes I wind up feeling less close to people after we've gotten connected on FB then I felt before, even if I hadn't seen that person in years. I mean if the person is somebody you haven't spoken to in a while, then there's this very wide gulf of time between you where all of these things have happened in your lives and you can't just get caught up on that shit by writing a couple of sentences on a "wall-to-wall." So instead, you just say nothing. And so then, there they are: in front of you every day, virtually closer than they've been in years. And yet—because you haven't really communicated with them—they're further away than they ever were before. They become almost like a neighbor that you see from over a fence every day and with whom you don't ever really talk about anything meaningful. Instead, you yell one-liners at each other about how it's really freakin' hot today or man, the Yankees are sucking some ass this year, aren't they? And how are you supposed to respond to these things? You can't. So you shrug and you pull up another window with your work in it, the stuff you're supposed to be doing but don't want to, and you go back to your life.

And now your most recent memory of this friend you haven't seen in 15 years is that they just had Cheerios for breakfast. Or that they are power-washing their house today. And you might like to ask them, how did that power-washing thing go? But you don't. Not because you don't care, but because what you really want to ask them is, "how have the last 15 years been?" But that's too much to bite off in a status update. And, oops, an email just came in which you have to answer, so you reckon' you'll ask about that power-washing thing some other time.

But you never do.

Despite the negativity here, and contrary to the title of this post, I don't actually think Facebook is a mistake. It's a really great app, and I've always thought that. I love how it connects you with people. I also love it from a professional standpoint, for the way it encourages open development, and how it's clean and polished. But the thing is this: It's a good app, but it is just an app. It's an app that connects people. That's it. And the trick is to not let it turn your friendships into endless tapas ... or yoga.

Ahh ... so there it is: My Inevitable Facebook Post. Until now, you could search my site and not find one reference to FB, which kind of surprised me when I realized that. But not anymore. I've entered the din of conversation, even though the Internets never asked for it, or cared.

And I guess I don't feel as dirty as I thought I would. Which is kind of disappointing.

In the end, this wasn't nearly as bad as, say, ... chipmunks. Or Daschunds. Oh well. Maybe next time.

First, I've got to find somebody with an XBox. And a couple of bowls in need of smoking.

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