Jane, Unfriending Me

FINALLY, AT LONG LAST, its over. The most inadvertant "friendship" I hope to ever have. I joined Facebook seven years ago or so for the purpose of opposing Trump and conservatism, and promoting this website. Both projects have worked out rather well. I've made and shared a large amount of unpleasant comments and negative but factual information about both, and I have increased my readership through posting advertisements. I never intended to engage in discussions or relationships with anyone on the platform. For me, Facebook friendships are not friendships, words typed and pictures shared on a computer screen do not result in getting to know someone. I never take and post selfies, I don't photograph my lunch or mixed drinks, and I post nothing, except the website advertisements. But, as they say, dung happens. My comments posted on other people's posts led to interaction with one person, only one person, Jane. For several years we liked each other, then ended up not liking each other. We had in common progressive politics, including Trump hatred, a love of cats, and...little else. Cats and Trump only went so far. Jane joined Facebook after I did, and immediately embraced the culture. She never let her lunch, dinner or cocktails go unpictured or unposted. The photos added up to expensive restaurants, expensive menus and meals, expensive mixed drinks. Her affluence was evidenced by her daily posted pictures of her lovely swimming pool. She seemed to want to make sure that everybody on Facebook knew that she had a swimming pool, a very nice one, with a framework screened in insect protector. My impression was and remains that the constant, daily pictures of her pool, redundant beyond my tolerance, were her way of flaunting her affluence. I told her so. She was a mystery lady, careful about what she showed. She showed everything she ate and drank, but she never showed her face. The only pictures of her on her profile were decades old, when she was young and attractive. She is now a senior citizen, and her looks have faded, turned into the looks of a mature, older person, a fact which she chooses to conceal. Never ask a lady her age. I consider that vain, and deceptive. Her proflie says that she's married, but she never mentions her husband, although she mentions every yoga class, zumba class, pilates class, all the fashionable classes. So far, no pickleball. No picture of her house, wisely. Just enough hints to convey an image of upper middle class home affluence. She mentions that her son is a lawyer. I sense in the background a corporate attorney husband, making all the affluence possible. She is evidently a retired nurse, a profession which by itself does not provide upper middle class affluence. She called me a "know it all: the penalty for having the audacity to correct someone's nonsensical notions and statements. She stated that weather is an abstraction. When I pointed out that hurricanes do very real damage and kill very real people and that heat waves and droughts which kill thousands of people every year are very real, not abstractions, she argued about it, which told me much, as much as I need to know. The many pictures she shared of her cat endeared many, myself included. Now, I will never now when my little girl dies, only that she will. Facebook friendships are like third grade friends; we make a list of them. I took Jane off my list, tired of the arguing. She brought me back, and I apologized. When she complained about having trouble with her cell phone, and I mentioned that I had gotten rid of mine and didn't miss it, she gave me a brief lesson on the beneifts of having a phone in one's car. When I told her that I already knew about the practical benefits of having a cell phone, she told me that she wishes me and my cats the very best, and took me off her list. I told her that I felt a sense of liberation. I still do.