I broke up with the Facebook because it just wasn't useful

A week ago, I looked at how I use the Internet weekly, daily and hourly. It looked like this:

• Facebook - hourly in that I at least looked at notifications and would share and post a lot other times;
• Blogger - once a month to post a blog post or two, usually about reading or geek stuff;
• Twitter - daily in order to find articles on topics I care about;
• Google+ - every second or third day to read topics I'm interested in and for sharing interesting articles;
• Flickr - weekly to upload pictures from my life that I want to share with loved ones;
• LinkedIn - every second or third day to find interesting things to read and participate in discussion groups. Also share interesting reading I have found and think others will like;
• Work email - week days at work but not outside work; and
• gmail - once or twice a day max and mainly for dealing with job related stuff.

Then I read a quote from Jason Yip on Twitter that said...

Worry less about "Are my feelings / Is my behaviour justified?"; worry more about "Are my feelings / Is my behaviour useful?".

That one tweet made me stop and reassess so much of who I am and what I currently do. So, I asked myself: When I use the Internet is my interaction useful?

• Facebook - No;
• Blogger - Yes;
• Twitter - Yes;
• Google+ - Sometimes;
• Flickr - Yes;
• LinkedIn - Yes;
• Work email - Absolutely; and
• gmail - Yes.

It took me less than ten minutes to then decide that I would do the following things:

• Stop using Facebook immediately and then delete my account if I didn't use it for 3 months;
• Remove Facebook, Twitter and Google+ apps from my phone and other mobile devices; and
• Log out of Twitter and Google+ and only log in when I explicitly wanted to use them.

For the first two days after stopping using it, I kept coming back to the same feelings and asked myself if the resulting reaction would be useful...

• Should I tell someone what I'm doing or feeling? Yes, but more specific people and not Facebook; and
• Should I check to see if anyone has sent me a message? No, they will contact me on my phone or via email if they need me.

After the initial habit change left me nervous and a little anxious, it all passed. Yes, I still use all the other sites with more intent than I did in the past but I don't use Facebook and I feel no need to.

Later on, I will write a more detailed post about why Facebook has irked me for the last 6-9 months and how that has aided in my persistence to not return. This is not the post for it. Again, would it be useful?

Wish me luck and if you can't find me online, you can find me on the end of a telephone.

Friendzones and Fury

This afternoon, a male friend told me that men and women can not be friends. He is a little upset about what he sees as me putting him in the friendzone. I don't know about all these stoopid rules. I have a lot of friends, male and female. We can all be friends IMHO. If we go through life assuming everyone of the preferred sex wants to bonk us then that would be just strange. Instead, I choose to have lovely friends and let life be what it is.

Thank you for being my friends

This last seven days has seen me lean on my closest friends and on my family to get through the challenges. My support network is amazing and if I don't say it enough: Thank you.

Thank you to Allison Carleton for being my voice of reason and for giving me sanctuary in every storm.

Thank you to Bernarda Maia for never letting me apologise for who I am and always offering to help me bury the bodies.

Thank you to Taylor-Trina Kadiba for being my loyal, loving and always supportive sister. You are my best friend.

Thank you to Candace Wong for making me laugh when I wanted to cry, usually at her but also at myself.

Thank you to Ola Kl for reminding me that I am awesome even when I don't feel like I am. And for making it ok to have You're So Vain as my life soundtrack.

Thank you to Bruce Cartland for tolerating my stupidity and always lifting me up.

Thank you to Evelyn Moreno for showing empathy and letting me be myself.

Thank you to Janet Wong for being endlessly kind and sincerely celebrating and sharing every achievement with me for my entire career.

And although we are not facebook friends, thank you to my boss who kicks my arse at the right times and sits and shows compassion when it counts.

Thanks to everyone else for always being kind. It counts whether it is in cyberspace or meatspace. I am honoured and humbled.

Timing is Everything

About a week ago, I sent a message to my good friend Joy saying "hey." It was some ungodly hour of the night when I couldn't sleep. My friends know I get like that once in a while.

By pure chance and possibly due to sleepy eyes, I sent the "hey" message to someone else. Someone who I'd forgotten or blocked out to the point that his initials triggered nothing in my memory. None of our texts had been preserved which either meant his number came from my old work phone or I'd trashed the messages. That would be rare if I didn't send the number down the shoot with them so I figured there was a work-friend connection.

He responded commenting on the late time to send messages. I apologised saying I didn't meant to send that to him and didn't know who he was anyway. It didn't take too much banter to realise who he was.

Now, I don't regret the past. It is one of my rules. Living in the here and now, accepting what has happened to make me who I am now and going on with the lessons learnt has been my ethos for many years now.

This one however caused that twang of sadness or doubt or a just full sub-cutaneous jab to something with exposed tendons and lots of nerve endings.

There has been only one time in my life when I met a person and the chemistry was amazing and everything else was brilliant and thanks to crap timing on my part the first time and his part now, it all adds up to nothing. Just a twang like a string on a broken guitar.

And this proves two things to me...

1. Don't look back; and
2. Delete phone numbers from your phone that you should never ever text.

And the band played Waltzing Matilda

I have a handful of best friends. Literally five people who are in my inner circle. That does not include my family who are my 0th circle. The friends are in the 1st circle of Manadom.

Interesting things about my friends include:

• They are imports or if Aussie then they don't live in Australia;
• They are non-judgemental and respect that fact that others sport differing opinions; and
• They are very smart and extremely humble.

This is consistent and uncompromising.

Conversations with Girlfriends

It is amazing how good it is to share your current state of temporal inanity with your female friends.

It is never the same telling it to the opposite sex no matter how empathic they are or how close you are to them. Girlfriends get you on a different level.

Until an hour long conversation tonight, I was feeling a bit like a parrot who had lost its squawk. Like Austin Powers drained of mojo. Like a girl walking barefoot in to a crowded ballroom.

The thing that has become quite apparent to me over the years is that when you tell someone else what is going on in your head, you find that you are not at all alone. In fact, you find that no matter what you think of your own thoughts of actions that they are never as bad as you think. Someone else has been there before.

There are many people out there who will just tell you to suck it up but you don't want those ones. Find someone who understands and take a short time to be understood. Then move on.

Being understood does not mean validated. It just means someone will listen and not judge you. They may accept what you are thinking or offer an alternative.

Sisters over misters.

Friend Portfolio

My friend Jen Coombes introduced me to the idea of the Friend Portfolio. She is the greatest friend thief I will ever know and the best inspiration. She taught me that if you mesh with someone then just let it happen. Don't fight friendship. Don't try to force it. Let it happen and forget the rules and regulations.

I was at a Halloween party recently for a recently made friend, with my girls Olga and Elmo. I was busy in the kitchen dressed as an iPhone making my famous margaritas when I ranted about how friends betray you. The friends that you surround yourself with and the amazing people around you say more for who you are than any constructed identity or brand. They are the definition of who you are.

The girl with the strong Italian accent asked "where are you friends tonight?" and I pause and then answered "They are the two fully clothed girls who are swimming in the pool and attracting all the male attention".

I'm Sorry

Kate Miller-Heidke says it best when she croons "please, please believe that I'm sorrrrrry".

My friend Angela Ferguson pointed out the other night that I was in a facebook friending frenzy. She does have a way with words. It's what makes her the kind of friend who you stop and listen to.



Ange was right, I was on a friending spree but it wasn't out of boredom or mania. This was purely due to the fact that I want to make contact with new and old friends.

I am back in a good place and people energise me. All those people who have touched my life are welcome back in, if they feel they want to return.

In the past, I shut down anything that harshed my mellow. These days, you'd need to use an accelerant and a match to really upset me. Not that you should try that.

So, friend me already.

Imaginary Friends

There are billions of people on the Earth. Thousands share your popular culture. Hundreds live in the same socioeconomic and cultural group. Dozens will call you friend. A fistful will love you, the way you love them.

How Manly You Are

After a night breaking shoe rules at inner-west parties, this rebel awoke to a medium to rare headache. Maybe it was the projectile expulsion the previous night but I felt slightly seedy and not overly precious on Sunday.

Allison and Kellie had been at an all you can drink foodie and wine birthday dinner the night Bernarda and I rocked Linda's housewarming but that didn't stop Allison from going for her normal swim. Today it was at the heated outdoor salt water pool under the coat hanger in Milson's Point. That is an iconic pool. It's one of the first sites I found when Google Earth Street View came online with Sydney snaps.

That area means a lot to me. Milson's Point. I used to work at a company called BCode with Sydney offices above Luna Park. In summer my days consisted of witty repartee with an Irish hardware engineer I wish I'd married and the day long screams from Luna Park-goers riding the scary rides.

Luna Park rides aren't like new parks where you accelerate towareds the ground at the speed of fright. They are those old rickety rides that make you wonder mid-ride if they have been doing the regular maintenance and what years of wear and tear can do to steel. Thus the screaming soundtrack while we worked. The view rocked, if that helps.

Allison chose a good pool for a cold winter Sydney day of swimming. She did however demonstrate the frustration of commuting to Manly on a weekend. Getting from Milson's Point to Manly requires a ferry ride back to Circular Quay and on tp Manly. Not a shirt ride or the most crow flyey path.

The easy enough journey to Manly was made painful by the hangovers that we all had persist past lunch time. Bernie and I were meant to meet a Circular Quay but after we realized we were about to miss the ferry, I got my kindly taxi driver to swoop by pick he up somewhere between Darling Habour and Circula Quay. Sydney people know that area as a deadspot aimed at tourists and lost folk... often interchangeable.

After rescuing B from no mans land, we sat at the ferry terminal and tried to make conversation. It was a major fail and she declared that Candy would be the only one without a hangover and this our only hope. Candy is intolerant of alcohol and can't drink. She's so much the Enetgiser Bunny that it lessens no outing when she attends. Candy was leaving home after giving a maths tutorial and was running about an hour late. No, half an hour with our detoxicating disadvantage.

That slut of a city (as referred to by Bernie) had a calm harbor this day. Luckily for my rolling tummy and the packed ferry of tourists crossing the ditch with me. The sail boats were out and the sun was shining so after my body turned suitably numb, it was quite a beautiful day.

We ended up at a microbrewery, known mainly to the locals. It's always amusing to listen to Manly locals bitch about the hoards of tourists in their British accents. Hate those invaders.

Within arriving, I finished my smuggled in Red Bull and started on Kellie's hair of the dog cure of bubbly, lemonade and oj. It's a personal mix but works wonders for postponing the hangover until later. During this micro-cure for a macro-hinderance in a microbrewery, I managed to hit an attractive blonde waiter while telling an exaggerated story requiring massive hand movements.

That was nothing on K's rant about "gingers" and why they are devil spawn. A post for another day and another writer probably.

We spent hours there and then by a fire in another pub. Candy arrived with her new haircut that for some reason encourages men to approach her and share their secret fantasies of dressing her up as an anime character. It's amazing what people think it is ok to say to one hairstyle that you simply can not say to another hairstyle. If only men realized that we women don't change our looks or dress each morning with their fantasies in mind. *sigh*

I sat there in the last pub doing my best to imbibe an enthusiastically purchased final bottle of bubbles. We were all forcing it down at that stage. No hair of the dog would help at this stage. The hangovers had caught us while we were at our tired weakness and unable to hold them back with our 30 something denial.

Thinking at that point of how rare an afternoon I was having in spending hours eating, drinking, hitting attractive men and discussing life, the universe and everything with my four best friends, I smiled. It was a smile that warmed me from the curls on my head to the heels on my feet and all the bits in the middle. That or I was too near the fireplace. I'll believe the former.

I'm too lucky with this friends thing. Telling Bernie on the boat ride home that a person's friend portfolio tells you more about them then any brand they outwardly portray, I realized that I'm surrounded by brains, beauty, charisma and kindness in spades.

It didn't matter that the place was Manly, it was a day for the girls.

Soul Mates

I will quote anyone if they help argue my point. In this case, it is Samantha in Sex and the City 2. Carrie compliments her for not dumping her friends and going off with a handsome man. She laughs a haughty laugh and says something about how they worked out long ago that men and babies don't matter because the four of them are soul mates.

It wasn't until I heard that a second time that I realized that I have soul mates. People who fill in the cracks when we are are together and make everything feel complete and whole again. People who act as scaffolding until we can hold ourselves up.

There is a corny story that talks of people existing as a perfect vase long ago. One day, the vase shattered in to many tiny pieces. In time as we live and are reborn, we will find the pieces that fit in to us and make us whole again. They are our soul mates.

Do I believe it? Yes, to an extent the idea is good. There are people everywhere but only a few that we fit in to and them in to us. We may travel a million paths and never find that one or few people who make us feel complete. Those who we didn't know were missing until they appeared. Not something we lack that is fulfilled but something that compliments and increases who we already are.

So often, life is either a compromise to accept people in to our lives or a series of shut doors to ensure we don't let the wrong people in. It may even become the case that we reject so many people by default that we don't let certain _right_ people in. I don't believe this is the case with so-called soul mates.

If someone is meant to be in your life then it doesn't matter if they come along too late or too under the radar to register at first because they will continue to reappear until one of you realises.

Is this the same as 'true love' and 'forever friends'? No. I'm not sure those exist. They are fluffy concepts wrapped in Hallmark and coated with pink fairy floss.

You laugh and say soul mates are the same thing. Maybe I'm aging and becoming more idealistic but I'm not convinced. There is too much evidence in my life that says that not making early sacrifices will result in true friendship found. It's a combination of waiting, trusting, not trying and always being yourself. Then when you find it, there is no real effort required to allow it to happen. It simply works. It makes sense. It is easy.

My only active advice is to not let it go. Hold on to it as other forces will surely push to re-sever. Not in a way that forces it because that can cause stress to but more in a way that is conscious and mindful of it's value.

Value the valuable. Somethings lost are wounds we my never recover from. At least for a few more lives, when we attempt to find them again.

Airplanes

Airplanes. A great place to write. I spend so much time on them writing stuff that I wonder if that is why I travel at all. It is the perfect place to write. I can sit in a cluster fuck of people and ignore them completely. Pump the music up and chip away at the thoughts in my head.

This time, it was Sydney and Canberra that borrowed me for a while. It was meant to be more Sydney than The Capital but minds changed and plans went with them. Don't ask me why. I'm not sure I know why yet.



Bernarda was the first to see, squee and hug me on arrival in Sydney. We jumped out of separate taxis outside Allison's place in Surry Hills across the street from each other. Wielding a bottle of bubbly and the sweetest, most loving smile she greeted me. Reminding me why Sydney is another home for me. A place I belong and long for.

On this plane, they are serving food but I only want a red wine. I used to worry about the order of things before. Like dessert after dinner, when I now have it before if my mood guides me there. There is the rule of wine with food. Responsible service of alcohol except when the food is plane food and eating that is not so responsible.

Ahhh.... responsible. I want to only ever write it with a lower case R. It is far too big a word already, without engrossing its importance. Feeding its ego with stress and overvalue.

Bernarda and I got Allison's neighbor Claudette to let us in to her place. Claudette knew to expect a Brazilian called Bernie or a Darwin girl called Damana to turn up and ask to be let in. We took the third compound option and the neighbour smiled as she let us in. We know the people on that street very well. Allison has been there for a long time and I lived four doors up from her for a short time. That was at a time when my life was falling apart and I couldn't keep my ducks in a row.

Oh, do ask me about ducks later. There is a story there.

We let ourselves in to Allison's and as Bernarda grabbed the flutes, I opened my suitcase and made the big decisions. Must I change out of my Black Milk lace bell bottom tights or would they sensibly help me acclimatize?

We got distracted by the glasses of bubbly and discussions of new wave condoms before important lacey-like decisions could be made. The bottle was empty as we swanned out the door and hailed a cab heading for Linda's place in Marrickville.

Marrickville to me will always be a suburb close to the airport that is home to one of Australia's best boxers. It will also now be the suburb Linda lives in, where a week earlier down the street a man shot himself in the head when cornered by police for a recent criminal act. Associations.

Linda is an American friend who was having a housewarming. For some reason I always end up at her parties and leave said parties with trouble trailing loose behind and many incriminating photos imprinted in digital worlds.



This party was no exception. The moment when you hear yourself declare "let's make these photos look hilarious for facebook" is often the end to what could have been a fun and reserved night. I don't know if it was the mulled wine or the shots of grey goose in large plastic party cups but all I remember after that declaration is lying on Allison's couch and requesting a bucket with some water in the bottom.

Seeing Linda later for a girly cheese dinner brought out another Damana Sex And The City moment. Apparently, on arriving at Linda's she asked me to remove my shoes. Everyone else had but I kept ignoring the instructions and giving one reason that I thought would explain everything. "These are Campers heels". This seemed like a free pass to break the no shoes rule. Even lying on Linda's bed in shoes.

Fortunately, Linda is nothing but class. She expressed her discontent and we continued a lively night of wine and cheese and wine. Next time, I'll find an attractive man to help me take me shoes off. That could be the new doorman for Sydney inner-west parties.

No regrets

Good Friends

If only you could hear what I hear

Maybe I have a trusting face.

Maybe I am so high disclosure that people feel they know me and can trust me.

Maybe people feel for me and want to tell me that they know how it feels.


In the last few days, I have heard so many stories about people being bullied. They were children or adults. They were friends or they were partners. They were afraid and they got strong.

Thank you for your stories. It takes a lot of voice these memories when the people who did these things made us feel worthless. It takes strength to keep going and throw away those horrible times and forget the words that hurt so much for so long.

Keep being good people. Don't let bed people make you less than what you are.

Freer or Fear

I'm in a strange predicament.

After cutting off the axis of idiocy, who abused me the other night, I feel afraid.

Afraid that they will do something more. Something more frightening.

As for what, I don't quite know. Maybe turn up at my front door or send someone on their behalf. Maybe run in to me in the city and hurt me.

Hopefully, they are content with their emotional torture from the other night and will leave me be.

At present, I lock the door of the house when I'm both inside or away from home. I lock the car door as soon as I'm in it.

My heart beats a little faster when I see an old white Camry. I'm jumpy. Usually, I'm pretty blasé about everything. Not now.

I hope this feeling passes soon. The stress is very taxing.

It's all about Gummi Bears

I've changed my phone number again. Yes, that is twice in a month. Before that, I had the same mobile number for almost 7 years.

Optus was actually a great help with this service. They were understanding and helpful. They didn't charge me the $55 fee that I was expecting, even though they told me that the next time would cost me. I guess they are reasonable when they discovered the number was leaked without my consent.

Why the change to my one unique identifier? Why the rush to the gates of anonymity? Some may even be wondering why they haven't received the latest incarnation of my ten digit name.

The reason is that I'm guarding this one with my life. Most folks email or DM me so I texted my number to the last few people who I have texted. If you do feel the need to call or text me then do send me an online message and I'll hook you up.

Hopefully, life will settle down and I'll stop bouncing here and there and everywhere.

You are the only exception

For B.

The Tim Show

Tim was the best man at my wedding and the most relaxed

There was this guy a knew when I lived in Canberra, called Tim. He was a pretty easy going kind of guy and not much seemed to phase him. When I was affronted by the smallest snub, he would smile and tell me not to take it personally. My rejoinder was often a quick snap back of "it's happening to me so how do I not take it personally?"

Tim and I didn't really understand each other. We were both a friend of a friend and that node was enough to bring us together regularly. In any other situation, Tim would have driven me insane with his overly-relaxed view of all that occurred around him.

One day over many beers, I asked him to explain to me how he saw the world. Why didn't he seem pissed at anything or anyone, ever? Why was stress never knocking at his door yelling "Police, we have a battering ram!"

He told me in a very matter-of-fact way that was because he was the star of the Tim show. On the Tim show everything was about him. When people interacted with him, they came on to the Tim show to do a cameo. When the characters told him something, he took it at face value. If he went for a job and they said he was over-qualified then he simply took that as fact. When someone rocked the boat in the Tim show, it didn't sink. That was because any negative stuff was more learning of morals on the Tim show.

The way he saw it, each other person in the world has their own show that they star in. Sometimes there are spin-offs and guest appearances. They didn't always remember that other people were on their shows because it was all about them. If a decision seemed mean or affected Tim badly, that was either because they had a lesson for him or they were too consumed in their own show to realise the consequences. People were not bad. They were just thoughtless at times.

I have passed on this tale of the Tim show to many people in my time, when they needed to know that it is all about you, except when it is all about someone else. The world isn't made up of good and bad; right or wrong; or even black and white. It's just a bunch of sometimes mismatched TV shows with egocentric stars who are teaching and learning from each others lessons.

If you have a day when you feel a little or a lot stressed by those around you. Treat it like the Tim show or the Damana show. Don't stress too much. Tomorrow's episode is going to be better.

Ideals

A lot of what you read here is the product of conversations that I had with friends and family in real life. We talked about something and it sparked a chain of thoughts that finally came out here, in electrons on a blog on a server in a Google cloud somewhere.

That doesn't mean that I repeat what someone said to me or expose or negate their point of view. Not at all. Instead, I take the final dump of what has developed as an over-think in my mind and place it here. Maybe you can read it and snuff out the spark with a brilliant and enlightened comment or take it with you and think on. Either way, the idea goes on.

A friend asked me recently if I am an idealist. The question is like a bit like the uncertainty principle. Asking me makes me change the way I would answer the question because it sounds a little like a bad accusation. A closed question with only one sane and reasonable answer.

Once you get passed 25 years old, you should be more cynical and less idealistic. Ideals are for university students and tree huggers who don't use deodorant. Not for hipsters that frequent trendy bars and discuss the lives of the middle class, as if they were concepts from a Steinbeck novel.

That's not how the question was asked though. This person was just asking, in order to approach a possible explanation for why I no longer believe in love.

The theory was that an idealist young woman grows up believing that her prince will come. He will be a knight in shining armour and take her away in to a sunset filled happily-ever-after.

A realist probably thinks that it is going to happen more like Shrek crossed with Reservoir Dogs.

As for who is right, I think it isn't so much a case of right and wrong but of how you look at things. Yes, yes, that's the typical Damana with her "perspective changes perception" outlook on life. I've even been told that I am delusional for believing that there is a silver lining to every cloud and it's probably 925 sterling.

Whether it is delusion or not, I do believe perspective builds perception and perception is reality. Does this mean I was shattered by my marriage because my prince was a complete tosser? No, I still think marriage vows mean something to me that they did not mean to him. If I get a chance again, I would still strongly believe in commitment and love.

Do broken friendships and abandoned promises make me think that people are junk yard dogs, waiting to go for my jugular? Nope. I think the majority of people are good. They have different priorities to me so they may not choose a path that satisfies my life needs but it is their path.

Will I ever fall in love again? Not easily. Maybe never. Does that make me feel incomplete and less idealistic? Again, no way. I think there is a prince out there for every princess. I don't want the dude to save me. I'm a self-rescuing princess. I don't need anyone saving me. That doesn't mean there isn't salvation to be found with a partner. Someone you can share your life with and who completes you.

It's quite possible that all my possibilities have passed but I will remain idealistic. Instead of uncertainty, the friend who asked has reinforced my resolve to continue to be idealistic. To believe that the world is mine to form with my perspective as the building blocks to giving me my preferred perception.

Who knows? Maybe some day, my prince will come.