facebook stalking, WTF is that!!

So the other day I noticed one of my FB friends were talking about someone “creeping their profile”. I suppose it got me to thinking about my activity on FB, could I be considered a FB stalker. Because I do sometimes go look at my friends walls, their pictures and what interests they may have that I did not know about previously. I thought that was one of the purposes of the social media on the first place, connecting with folks in a new and modern and all digital way. Once I started looking up the definition, I am even more scared.


Evidently a FB stalker is a person who spends large amounts of time on Facebook looking at other people's profiles, often browsing photos, walls (or wall-to-walls), groups, or recent activity posted on the stalked person's mini-feed. Well I would not say that I spend large amounts of time doing those things but I have done them before. I am not sure how an individual can secretly look up people on FB, going through albums, comments and personal information to piece together a picture of this person. I can’t figure out how to look at people unless we are my FB friends, in which case I am not sure it is stalking - is it.

They say you qualify as a FB stalker if you, A) click on someone's profile more than once a day even if they haven't messaged or tagged you in a photo. B) Have dragged and dropped more than 3 FB photos (not from your own profile) C) actually go to a place mentioned on someone's page in hopes of seeing them in real life. Well there have been times that I looked at someone’s profile more than once a day, sometimes a comment they place on their feed, or wall or whatever that area is called, and that prompts me to go look at some picture or some group that they are in, sorry to those of you who I have done that to. I do not know how to drag and drop a facebook photo in my own profile so no chance of that in someone else’s profile. And as far as going to a place mentioned on someone’s page, that happened just recently. I reconnected with an old friend from the USS Gettysburg and on his page we discussed where we were going to meet, and then on our pages again, we planned and he came to our house for dinner.

I do look at my firends profiles, I do look at thier pictures and I do look at what groups they are in, do I spend “large amounts of time” doing it, no. So I guess there are now programs that let folks know who is viewing what and the periodicity of which they are viewing it. Well, I guess I am busted because sometimes I may come to your page more than once a day, hell I might even leave some traces (a comment) that you don’t need a “secret app” tracing my comings and goings. I hope you never need to come watch your house while you are out of town, although I bet you have those little hidden cameras watching me anyway.

You know what else I do, every week or so I pick friends that I have not seen any activity from in a while and guess what, I send them a “secret message” and ask how things are in their world. Not because I am stalking them, because I want to know how my friends are doing and that all is OK in their world. Something else I did was send FB email’s to about 20 different people, all named Marc Gagne asking if they were the Marc Gagne that I served with on the USS Stump by in the 80’s. A number of them messaged back with a comment "not me" but you know what happened yesterday, my buddy Marc from all those days ago checked in with me. I suppose that could be considered stalking as well but you know what, I don’t give a shit and if you care that much about me stopping in on your page then boot me from your friends list and that will stop that activity immediately. If you don’t care then you WILL be seeing me looking in from time to time (God forbid, I might even go look at one of your friends pages) and you might, just maybe, get a message from me asking how things are in your world.