Oh so true Dotsie. Here's the way I see it. FACEBOOK, my FACEBOOK, is mine. It's MY house. I set the rules. You (talking general now) don't like what I do? Leave.

I use it for work, too. I don't give a rip if people don't like it. Block me, you know? It's MY HOME on Facebook.

I just wish we had the way to block single post, not people entirely.

Nora asked a question some of us might have been thinking, but were afraid to voice. This is my home base, and I have ventured to other cyber cafes. If I have really deep feelings/thoughts, I would voice them here because a certain trust has developed over the years. Whenever someone here is happy, sad, glad, or fed-up, you can practically feel the cyber-hugs here. I read a lot of topics here, where we can get involved in real discussions. FB is a hi and good-bye kind of place. I went to FB because I am on a mission. I wanted to broaden my reach. The desire to broaden my horizons would not have evolved had I not received encouragement here for 4 years! Here I can "talk" in-depth with women but on FB, it's more about "work." I don't play the games or gifts or whatever. And you can block someone from your news feed. For me, I keep most everybody in my feed on FB because I need to know what's going on relative to "causes." If certain somebodys got onto FB and found me, I would delete my profile immediately. Here, I feel a whole lot safer. This is a trustworthy, encouraging group of GENUINE women! xxoo P.S. I'll be away from the net next week (visiting my mother) and I will think about the women here, how so and so is doing, but I doubt that I will give another thought to FB while I'm gone.

Thanks to each of you so much. I tend to like places more like this site than facebook or such. Thats just me and I know I am the minority. Been kinda that way my whole life. I'd call myself a shy gal, but love to make meaningful friendships. Someone I can count on and she knows she can count on me.

I hope I can build close relationships here and build the same trust you girls have in each other.

I'm still very hurt about my friends. This will take a little time to get past, but I will. Theres something exciting about new things and places and people. I look forward to being your friend

((((((((((((Hugs)))))))))))) to each of you

Nora

((((((((((Hugs))))))))) right back to ya. You will find plenty of friends here.

Oh, and FB? I doubt you are in the minority.

I guess it depends. Most of my facebook contacts -- I already had lifelong or long term meaningful relationships with these people before Facebook was invented, so it just became another way for us to have fun together. And for the long-distance relatives and friends, another free way to communicate.

As for political agendas etc, once in awhile I will see a post with that, but it is so few and far between that I just skip over it.

I guess I have been lucky not getting any negative or dumb posts on my Facebook wall. Mosyly just having fun from playing the games.

I am on FB as well as here. I am also on LinkedIn. FB I use to keep up with family, old classmates, etc. I often get requests for friends, but ignore them unless it's actually someone I know. I am surprised at how many people are on FB that I know. My LinkedIn account is mostly for information gathering. There are some interesting groups on there that I have joined as a way of expanding my circle and re-exploring my roots. But again, I only have people in my network that I know, whether in person or from BWS. I enjoy a couple of the games on FB but will go days without even playing.

I will post here or on any of the other communities I belong to if I think I have something useful to add to the conversation, or if I have something I feel strongly about. There are some threads I don't even look at because some people get too rabid about the subject and it makes me mad that people can be so petty and vitriolic. But here on BWS there isn't much of that, and as others have said, it's a safe circle of women, many of whom have been here for a long time.

I'm not on FB, Twitter or LinkedIn ..yet.

Am the sort of person who perfers a smaller circle of both close and distant friends. At this time, I don't feel like cluttering up my head with...more clutter, news (which other people may think it's important, but not always to me).

I already belong to 2 Internet forums, this one being one of them. That's enough for me. And I continue to get more automatic push news via email tied in to several work-related associations. Theoretically, I should sign myself up for more news upates from other related organizations, to keep abreast of work-related changes. ...but it can result in feeling fragmented and like a perpetual dilettante. It's not a feeling I want at this stage in life --ie. lost at sea and playing around all over the place in a superficial way.

I prefer to focus hard on areas that I like learning and expanding my learning outward from those nodes of interests. And this includes people.

As for politically driven topics, I don't mind. After all, I don't read/open every message if I don't feel like it. I perfer the Internet, etc. with near strangers or distant friends. 'Cause to spend alot of energy with real face-to-face, close friends on such topics, is not totally quality /productive time in fostering deep friendships. So I am a bit contrarian here.

I have 1 life, 1 short time on Earth, and need to spend time well without too much virtual relationships that may not result in real face-to-face relationships.

We only get this one life Orchid, all of us, so we need to do whatever it takes to enjoy that one life to the fullest.

That's the big lesson I've drawn out of all of the loss and grief I've had to crawl through...that life is short, special and too precious to waste...and that "waste" means different things to different people. I have a lot of fun on Facebook, not because of the games, but because of the people I've met while playing them. I've made some precious friendships there, in the course of an hour playing one specific game, i meet people from every corner of the world...I love that so much! One woman in particular (Kerry - you all helped pray for her a few months ago) has really touched my life in a special way. I know with certainty that my presence is very important to her right now, and so that makes Facebook the place where I'm meant to be at this time.

But BWS is home-base for me. This is where I start my day and this is where I end my day before shutting down the computer. One of the delights of my heart is seeing so many of my BWS sisters on Facebook throughout the day as well as here. It makes the world feel so much smaller and makes me feel so much more connected.