You probably already know this, but some guys use Facebook as a dating site. I get Facebook requests for “Friends” and notes from strangers who think my profile picture is “pretty” all the time. I used to agree to all takers for “Friend requests”, thinking I had met them in an online alcohol group or through this blog. I was hoping to expand my readership.

But all you have to do is misstep once with a Facebook friend and you are wary ever after. Closing one’s eyes, pushing the “accept” and trusting the universe is never wise. Especially considering there are 1.2 billion active Facebook users and it only stands to reason there are probably a few who do not have the discrete sensibilities and Facebook decorum you expect from your posse.

What happens with a friend mistake is one of three things:

You are inundated with political conviction

You find a tagged advertisement (or ten) for beauty unguents on your personal page

You suddenly see every photo that has ever been posted of yourself on your Facebook feed (including your profile pic) go by with the chirpy words, “Hot girl!” or “When are we getting together?” penned by your new friend. So you unfriend him and stop the madness.

I was checking the stats on one of our posts yesterday and I had a private FB message that said, “U there boss?” The author’s photograph shows him pouting into an obvious selfie with a gold headband (a la Tupac) and large, primitive beads around his neck – there are library books on high shelves behind him. I did a little research and he is already a friend although I do not remember making his acquaintance (perhaps it was done in the same white wine, memory-black-hole in which I bought an English Bulldog puppy on line…). He is from Gambia.

For some reason I liked the message so I said, “Yup.” I figured that was in keeping with the short but sweet question he had posed.

What came next was a series of thumbs up graphics and questions where the word “you” was spelled “U” as in “U miss on line why” – a sentence I did not, for the life of me, know how to answer.

I was having fun with it, he is apparently an artist and some sort of cultural attaché… until he said, “U can visit me over here.”

In GAMBIA? That’s the problem with sobriety. It makes you practical. And wary of “friends” offering to show you their childrens’ library in far away places… I am laughing as I type this because there was a time in my life (not too long ago) when I would think nothing of pursuing this endangerment. Kim and Dee would be on the phone together saying, “Oh God – now she’s bought a first class ticket to Gambia …”

And I’d be up for the adventure. No thought of the consequences. But here I sit thinking I have too much to do to give this little diversion more than the ten minutes of my life already spent. That’s the beauty of sobriety: the checks and balances, the appropriate level of caution. The practicality. Although, I don’t think I’ll unfriend him yet…

I had a message all the way from Gambia this morning. It said, “Morning U beautiful girl.”

I’ll bet he says that to all his “Friends”…