Oh yes.

I made a note of all the “friends” I had on there (didn’t take very long), and sent this message out to all of them:

“Hello mixture of ex-housemates, ex-work-colleagues, some friends, people from mIRC chatrooms, and people I went to school with, who I probably didn’t talk to, even when I was there.
Facebook classes you as “friends”, yet I’ve not spoken to most of you in at least 6 months (even on here), if that. So, either I’m being a shit friend, or you are. OR maybe we’re not really proper friends after all. I’m probably OK with that.

My Facebook account is a bit broken, and I can’t seem to fix it, so I figured I’d deactivate it and make a new one. Then I thought – “fuck it – why am I bothering to create a new one? I don’t hardly use Facebook anyway.”
I’ve never really liked the layout (be honest with yourselves – it is a bit shit/awkward really, isn’t it?), and I don’t get much from it.

Am I meant to be on here, just because everyone else is?
If everyone else jumped off a bridge…
Anyway, I’ve probably got more constructive things to do than compare myself to people I went to school with, to guess – from photos alone – if they might be happier/more settled in their current lives, than I feel in mine.

If I’ve seen one photo of your kids, I’ve seen 100 tedious almost-identical photos. No – I won’t join Farmville.
And looking at your photos on holiday in far away lands is just making me envious, and wishing I’d saved a bit more when I was earning enough to be able to afford things like that.

Oh and I know some people do things like this (emailing everyone, closing social network accounts, etc) before they kill themselves. I’m not going to kill myself. I think that’s worth clarifying.

I’m still online. I’m on <private email address>, I’ve got an irregularly updated blog at http://ben-park.co.uk and I’m on Twitter: @BenPark – but that isn’t a hint to contact me. There’s no need. Unless you really want to.

Good luck with the rest of all of your lives.

Ben

P.S. This might all be bollocks. If I’m back on here in a week, please forget I said any of this.”

At 10:26 this morning – I deactivated, and received a confirmation email from Facebook.

And then I Googled, discovered that deactivation isn’t the same as deletion (they keep all your data, and people can still message you, you just don’t get them), so I logged back in, reactivated my account (10:29 – “welcome back to Facebook” email…grrrr), and submitted a full deletion request.

I’m not the only one, either. A lot of other people may have grown tired of Facebook, or given up trying to make themselves like it in the first place (I’m in the second camp).

14 days. And counting.