Wednesday, April 15, 2009

My facebook dilemma

I logged onto facebook in December 2008 and created a profile with real information along with my political views (liberal) and religious views (freethinker, atheist, naturalist). My intention was to converse and connect with likeminded individuals, never once thinking about my other friends or family. I guess I was having a brain-dead moment.

A few months go by and facebook becomes more popular. A few of my friends from the other parts of my life start “friending” me and I start to think: Do I want to share this side of me with them? You see, these other parts of my life are very separate. There is no overlap. In fact it’s rare to even bring up religion or politics in my other life.

So what was I to do?

After thinking long and hard and listening to my husband tell me that I should be true to myself, I decided to change my political and religious views to something more whimsical and non-threatening. I remained true to myself by keeping all of my atheist friends and gaining more while also becoming friends with those in my other life. So far nothing has been said. So far.

4 comments:

Mike aka MonolithTMA said...

I came out as an atheist to all my friends and family, but I also chose to not be blatant about it on Facebook. Even though I'm sometimes annoyed by my Christians friends expressing their religious beliefs, I try not to be equally as annoying to them. ;-)

tina FCD said...

Oh boy! I originally joined Face Book for just the fun of it. I made a profile so that if anyone tried looking up my real name they wouldn't be able to find me. I put Tina Bu. LOL! But of course my son Gary starts looking up every freakin' family member on there and tells them, hey, my mom is on here too! What a butt head.
I really enjoy Multiply too, and he did the same thing there. I could smack him.

Anonymous said...

I have a similar dilemma.
I started facebook mainly because a few of my friends and family were on there and wanted me to view their stuff.
I didn't put any overtly atheist notes in my profile but after befriending a few fellow atheists I now have quite an obvious atheist following.
So far none of my friends or family have said anything, I'm just waiting for the day they do.
Most of my friends and family know I'm not religious, but don't know how atheistic and sometime anti-theist I am.

Poodles said...

This is why I have two facebook pages.