Holding out

Since I imagine that most of you reading this have a general idea of why I blog under a pseudonym, I'm not going to bother with the set up for all of that. It isn't necessarily pertinent to what follows, but the name might seem like it has something to do with it.

You might remember that I was a longtime holdout of grocery shopper loyalty cards, but eventually circumstances wore down my resistance. I don't have my name attached to the two that I hold, so I suppose I miss out on some of the benefits of having them. Still, it's an uphill battle or fool's game not to have them and receive the discounts, whether they're real or phony.

I fear that my lengthy resistance to another thing that I've consciously chosen to avoid may be close to falling by the wayside. What is this opponent? Facebook.

Unlike everyone and their grandmother, I'm not on Facebook, have never had an account, and have never seriously considered signing up for it. From time to time I may think that my objection to being on it is worth reevaluating, but I've always firmly sided on staying off of the site. I have my reasons, which are largely due to where I work and an incident there, but I'm not exactly thrilled with the site's notions of privacy (or lack thereof) and ownership of an individual's data.

Am I missing out? Probably. Not being on Facebook means being a nonentity. The company is deviously clever in making themselves the one-stop shop for much or all of what people do on the internet. If you want to know what's going on, chances are your best bet to stay informed about people is to be on Facebook.

For instance, I received an e-mail from my brother directing me to a photo gallery of my new nephew. One of his friends had taken the pictures and put them up on--you guessed it--Facebook. Since I'm not on Facebook, I'm shut out. Is it the end of the world? Of course not, but I'm also aware that this is something that's likely to go on (and it doesn't have to pertain to this particular issue). When does it reach the point when I stop being told whatever because I'm not on the site, so it's no use informing me in the first place?

I'm not going to sign up before I go to bed tonight, and I don't intend to do so in the near future. Nevertheless, I can see that the writing is on the wall. Like it or not, I'm probably going to have to submit to Facebook eventually. All we're bartering over is when.