Being on Facebook is like being away alone at a favourite holiday spot.
You’re very familiar and comfortable with the place; many of the other guests are people you Like. You have at least a passing familiarity with all of them. And just a few of those knocking about are by now close acquaintances with whom you’ve been sharing nodded greetings for years. And with some of that smaller number you’ve had a drink at the bar or a ramble on the mountain. Just now and then there are new people around who presumably have just discovered the well-kept secret that is your preferred bolthole. You nod a hello.
It’s a place one can still get to, despite the pandemic. No travel restrictions, no borders.
But if you go there alone, part of ‘Who You Are’ will be unknown to those of your family and friends who don’t go there. The more time you spend abroad in that friendly country, the more of you will be hidden from their comprehension.
Where one’s immediate family is concerned, if they aren’t on Facebook spending time there yourself may seem like a betrayal: one is choosing to be away from them. They will have no idea of the existence of You Abroad nor know the purpose or outcomes of your time spent there. Perhaps they are entitled to ask: “Who did you see? What did you think? What did you do?”
The force of this fanciful syndrome was brought home to me just recently. Alpha, who is risk averse, called me out for having divulged her Facebook and email addresses to the public by posting them on Facebook. This is a person who, advised by a close friend who works in cyber security, shreds separately any printed material that shows our address; and who, despite very little scientific evidence about the value of it, wipes down with a detergent solution everything that enters her kitchen. (Should you be invited to dinner, please be aware that you might be met at the door with an abundance of caution – a phrase for the times.)
Anyway, I could not for the life of me recall having transgressed in this fashion. So, like a self-obsessed archaeologist, I set about hunting through past postings on Facebook to see when and why I had committed this wrong.
It was quite frankly fascinating to skim what I have posted since I started on 1 July 2016. The first post was a long piece (hah! the pattern was set!!) about rural health in the Federal Election. [The five ‘Likes’ of that first post were from friends who are still spending time in our secret place today. You know who you are: Rachel, Viv, Anne, Denny and Steve. And thanks for the company.]
With the digging down I found reminders of a few special occasions and of many ordinary ones. There were everyday walks, cycle rides, and pottering in the back garden in all weathers but enjoying in particular the colours and the rude, unbridled energy of the four past Springs. I was impressed, not by any quality of the works or by insights they provide to my way of the world, but just by the evidence of how much time and energy I must have put into this Facebook anthology. I’ve been away from home a lot.
People in your network who don’t follow you will have an incomplete impression of who and what you are.
This includes members of your immediate family. There are seven in mine. One of them eschews interaction with Facebook entirely and always has done. Three are occasional users. One uses the platform but not for reading anything posted by family members. And two are avid, interested and Friendly.
So just imagine the varied volumes of evidence they must have about my meanderings! When they all gather to farewell me after the Last Post, they will have different levels of comprehension of me. Some of them should recall the brief moment when the question “How Green was Trevally?” gave the sort of insider pleasure in which one’s personal family should all share. They will have a more detailed view of walks on Red Hill and celebrations of the shortest day.
Perhaps that final farewell should be in two parallel parts: one for those whose knowledge and understanding of who I was includes information and clues from my time Abroad; the other for those who knew me only from the personal interaction we had. Or those in attendance could be divided in two, as at a wedding: “Facebook friends this side madam; Busy People and technophobes to the right”.
So what did I discover about the publication of my wife’s email address? I had to trawl back to 26 January 2018 to find the offending article. It celebrated the news that Alpha had been awarded an OAM for services to music in the ACT. The post received 79 comments. It has now been edited to omit Alpha’s email and Facebook contacts.
Not long after I had finished this archaeological dig, I received an unsolicited offer to produce (for “a very reasonable price”) a hardcopy book in full colour of selected bits of my Facebook posting history. Perhaps it was coincidence or, more likely, a flag goes up when someone reaches back into their postings and some entity spies a commercial opportunity. I didn’t mind – in fact I bought one of those books a few months ago. It now sits on what used to be called the coffee table in the front room. It lies there like some secret repository of time spent guiltily overseas, away from the nest.
Perhaps I should stay home, locked up in my native country. But being abroad and alone frees the imagination, widens the view, and outreaches the horizons.
