bossymarmalade | (no subject)

What I have always feared re: Facebook has finally come to pass -- a person I last knew in junior high has found me and wants to meet up for tea next time he's in Vancouver!!

This request came very suddenly after two minutes of messaging "whereabouts in Vancouver do you live, we should meet next time I'm there", and omg y'all, you must understand why I am so leery, because this is Trevor C__.

Trevor C__ was an affected, watching kind of boy who was obsessed with Anne Frank in Grade 7, when I was friends with him most. I don't mean he was touched by her story and her bravery. I mean he wanted to play Anne Frank all the time (with him as Anne) and the only decorations in his room were a cross and a pencil crayon reproduction of that photo of Anne Frank from the cover of her autobiography that he ordered one Scholastic book drive year. (I perhaps shouldn't judge him too singularly on that count, since sometimes it seemed to me that most Anglo white boys between the ages of 12 and 19 had a pressing interest in all things Nazi -- either that, or there was a preponderance of the type in my area.)

I was over at his house only a few times because he had a Ghostbusters computer game and a trampoline. Once we had hot dogs on paper Chinet plates which we scrupulously washed and dried afterwards. He had a grandmother in a wheelchair who would hiss for him to come aside while she talked to him about confusing, disturbing things in a piercing whisper, watching me the whole time. If you wanted to play on the trampoline, his father made you sign a waiver that exempted the C__ family from responsibility for not only your possible loss of limb and motor function, but also your "sexual drive".

Welcome to Canadian Gothic, folks.

You can see why I haven't been on Facebook since, heh, even though it seems that he's dampened down the Anne Frank (I still remember how he used to say it, in throaty blocks that he imagined was the correct Dutch pronunciation) and dialed up the Anglophile, having added many precious turns of phrase to his own Facebook entries.

This was a long and possibly quite dull way of saying -- I know nothing about Facebook. If I unfriend him or whatever, does that mean he can no longer see my entries or message me? Help me, Obi-Wan friendslist!!

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Facebook has settings somewhere, if you have it ONLY to friends only, then unfriending him will make your profile updates invisible to him, but he would be able to see your comments on other people's pages.

If you block him, he will not see you anywhere.

AWESOME AND THANK YOU! I only use Facebook at the moment to keep in touch with far-flung relatives, so I don't know its ins and outs very well. Going to do this now!

How you can do this; go to one of his posts. Mouse around in the upper-ish right side untill the invisible X pops into view. Click on it, which will allow you to hide his post. THEN facebook will give you a handful of choices, including "block this user" and once you've clicked on that-- everything you do and say is completely invisible to him.

That being said, just-- oh my god.

Edited 2012-12-23 00:58 (UTC)

+1 to blocking!

oh my god, I was just going to say, this sounds like a 19th century Canadian novel of some kind! Except with a trampoline! Jeez.

Sorry I can't help with facebook woes, as I don't use it.

Wow, I actually choked on my tea when I got to the bit about the trampoline. Real life can be so much more bizarre than fiction.

Yes, this exactly, including the inhalation of tea.

Oh god this is what I hate about social media. It's either "we're friends" or "we're not friends".

I'm sorry, but I laughed at this. I laughed a lot. Then I winced, because Facebook is awful and intrusive and I only keep it because my youngest brother is in London.

I'm all O.O at the trampoline waiver.

I have been able to deal with Facebook a lot better since I cut it down to about twenty people, and lock everything. There's a little button in the top right hand corner that has an option of "Stop someone bothering me" and you can use that to block a person.

I don't enjoy Facebook but it's become a necessary thing for keeping up with my family. *sigh*

... wow.

So he's a serial killer now, right?

I have to say, none of the teenage Anglo white boys where I grew up had a pressing interest in anything Nazi-related, but even if they did, playing "I want to play the poor tragically murdered girl" would strike me as creepy and weird. Like, unusually so.

I don't really know Facebook... stuff... either. My way of avoiding Facebook drama has resulted in a Friends request that I have neither accepted nor declined sitting in limbo for about two years now, because I don't want to deal with it. (It's from my sister. High school weirdos are unlikely to find my facebook profile, since I changed my name several years ago and it's not even slightly similar.)

I don't know how FB works but this:

Welcome to Canadian Gothic, folks

made me laugh and nod my head because it is so true. Giller shortlisted work of the future!

LOL! That is a great story.

Anyway, yeah, unfriending someone on fb makes it so they can't see your updates or profile if your updates and profile are set to show only to friends (if they are set to public he will be able to see them, and might be able to see them if they're set to friends of friends, if you have one or more friends in common). Not sure about the messaging, though.