Lately I’ve developed a sudden urge to close down my Facebook page!

The potential of Facebook is overwhelming.

The first wave of such a sensation was during my birthday this year, where dozens of people went on my FB page to send me birthday greetings.

I don’t mean to generalise this to everyone, nor am I evaluating their sincerity — but I understand that some people probably just wished me because they see my birthday appear at the “Events” section of their FB page.

Or because they felt sending someone a birthday greeting is a courteous thing to do.

Of course some did it from their heart, out of their sincerity.

Regardless of their intention, I’m thankful and all, but that isn’t my point.

The point is, when messages come together to you in bulk, it gives you a very threatening feeling.

It makes you super vulnerable, as if you have lost your privacy suddenly and people seem to know what’s going on with your life.

I must have so underestimated all the things happening that when people began telling me stuff they saw from my FB page, it pierces through me like a blatant fact I have to accept.

Besides, some people tend to associate me, whether positively or negatively, with what they could see and generalise from on that little FB page of mine, which is only a small part of the many things that represents myself.

For example, I have a lot of lovely students interacting with me and leaving comments or messages on FB. Because I treat these university students like young adults, on top of the fact that we are from the same generation, we therefore have a lot of things to talk about and share.

Due to this, I always strike the students as an approachable and relatively liberal-minded tutor in the faculty.

There is not point to limit the students and myself on what to say and what not so long as the expression does not have people raise an eyebrow and get on their nerves.

Moreover, on top of my professional life, I have my personal life too, and going on FB falls under the latter category.

Recently, several friend came asking me,

What the F.

IS THAT SARCASM OR WHAT?

The make me sound damn flirty.

I feel sorry for myself for having to bear such perception from others, and also for my students that they have to be associated with “lalat”.

People are so damn simplistic can! If like that some colleagues much, much older than me (no offense to them) who have a bazillion students leaving comments on their FB ma also be considered super-flirty lor?

Why must I be associated to that kind of perception?

WTF.

Siao one. Of so many things I have done that can be focused on, including my hard work to compile materials for students and making sure they understand their stuff — all these are not seen.

But for minor but non-important stuff like conversations on FB — it gets magnified like nobody’s business and remembered for the rest of their lives.

In another instance, I bumped into one of my students (she had not added me on FB), who wished me “Happy Birthday” in advance.

Surprised, I asked how she knew of my birthday, to which she said simply, “Everyone knows!”

She later asked if she could submit her work directly to me at my house, since she stayed nearby. Her question stunned me right there, as I felt that my privacy had been invaded to a great extent!

I quickly gave her a big no (I have always made clear between my personal and professional lives and don’t want to create controversy by allowing students into my house) and asked how she knew where I stay.

Again she said, “Everyone knows already! You’re cycling an orange-coloured bicycle, right?”

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Not that I was angry at the student — it wasn’t her fault at all that she got to know that much, but I just felt weak in the stomach to realise how certain information could easily reach people so easily beyond your expectation.

After that I kept thinking how students knew so much, and figured out that either they saw me cycling around, or they saw pictures of my bicycle I uploaded to my FB page.

Although the first possibility is more like it, I’m very damn sure that certain things do come from FB.

Some might call me a hypocrite for allowing myself to post stuff on FB yet freaking out when I realised what I posted had been remembered or taken a tad seriously by people.

But still sometimes you won’t realise how overwhelming certain outcome is until you start experiencing it!

Will talk about my second wave of the sensation to close down FB in the next post as I’m super tired as of now.