Oh Facebook, Oh Facebook, Wherefore art thou, Facebook?

I have been betrayed by Facebook.  I am a lover scorned.  A woman left at the alter.  A tragic figure of romance unfulfilled.  Facebook has rejected me.  Time and time again over the past few days I log on and log on again, only to be unrecognized - bumped off the system as though the past few years of our relationship never existed at all.  My page is still there.  I can put in my email and password and get the tease of a moment of access.  And then the second I try to comment or reply or move on to the next page, I am told to "log on" and asked, once again, for my credentials, as though I'd ever input them in the first place.  This kind of abject rejection is the cruelest kind of all.  It isn't as though I simply cannot log in.  It isn't as though the system fails to recognize me as ever having been a member.  My page is still there.  My friends are still there.  All traces of my past ardent and very Facebook-friendly activity still remain.  And yet I am bounced out of the inner circle like a girl passed around and then rejected by the members of the varsity football team.  Its like making it to the door of the hippest nightclub in town and never making it past the bouncer.  Or ordering a meal at a restaurant and then dying of starvation for the food that never comes.  Its sad.  Its humiliating.  But mostly its pathetic.  I had no idea how dependent I had become on the network known as "social" - on the book known as "face".  I am a parody of middle age - a woman forced by circumstance to derive great pleasure from her internet relations and access to bits of information that fill in the blanks of an actual social life.

And now, unless I take drastic measures (or figure out what drastic measures to take), I face life without Facebook.  Of course I will try to rectify the situation or hope that it is temporary - a mere blip in the e-universe and not a reflection on me personally.  But, meanwhile, perhaps I'll reach out to those I usually only connect with via internet.  Meanwhile, perhaps I'll read a book or write more posts or contemplate my navel to good effect.  Meanwhile, I will try to remember life before Facebook...