Yeah, Alright, Okay.

I could put it off no longer. Signing up for Facebook, that is.

I’m naturally suspicious of anything that allows my personal information to be shared with the world. Yeah, I know I share personal information every time I write a blog entry, but I don’t give out too much that could allow some nutter to come kidnap my child or some crook to steal my identity (Hey, having worked in politics and banking makes you very paranoid wary. The crazies I’ve encountered…I can’t even begin to tell you.)

However, through feeling completely out of the loop and being assured that I could “hide” my Facebook information so only friends could see it, I’ve relented.

I already see the how this becomes addictive for people. And, so far, the security of Facebook has proven itself adequate, if not humorous.

For example, when I went to add my husband (an avid Facebooker) under the “spouse” category, I got the message that he would have to confirm that we were in a relationship before his name would appear next to “spouse” on my profile. Damn rights, he’d better confirm it!

And of course he did but when it happened Facebook sent me a message telling me that he had “approved your relationship request.” Umm, technically, (as well as legally and religiously) he kinda “approved” that almost three years ago when we said our marriage vows. Anyhow, whatever. I wanted security, after all.

But on the flip side, things are already starting to annoy me. Less than 12 hours after I signed up, I got a request to be a “Facebook friend” with some dude that I don’t even know. “Good luck, buddy,” I thought before I hit the “Ignore” button.

We have mutual friends so I’m pretty sure he means no harm, but I have no interest in enabling him as he builds his vast Facebook Empire of hundreds of his so-called friends. (This makes me think there is a blog post in the offing to do with the insecure people who need to look popular on their profile by amassing scads of contacts.) Not that I even know hundreds of people, but even if I did, the vast majority of them need not read about my latest comings and goings (again, with the paranoia…)

I suspect that despite the small annoyances that will creep up, I will grow to love Facebook. I’ll let you know.