Yes, I did the whole Facebook thing. It was amusing for a few minutes – turning your friends into vampires, writing obscenities on their wall and throwing food at them....

But then it starts. Your hidden past rears its ugly head; crawling like a stinking, seething mass from the swamp with the sole intention of annoying the hell out of you. I’m not an angry person and it really is not in my nature to hold a grudge, but if you haven’t heard from me since the last time you stole my banana sandwiches in the playground, the chances are there’s a good reason.

The main reason that Facebook is so futile is that the majority of people on it seem to have so much time on their hands. They’re either bored, unemployed, in full time education, have bad personal hygiene or have somehow managed to lose all of the friends that they ever had because they kept nicking their packed lunches.

I lasted 2 months before I removed my profile from Satan’s web. I mean, how long can you drag it out before you have to tell someone that you don’t want to add them to your list of friends? And, worst of all, how long do you leave it before sending a ‘what did I ever do to you?’ email to someone who hasn’t added you to their friends list? Ok, so I may have snogged your girlfriend behind the bike sheds, but that was 20 years ago! Sheesh, get a life.

You see, if people really need to get hold of you, and if you need to get hold of them, you have generally exchanged contact details. If you have to ask.... it’s not so good.

Some people may say that it sounds like I have a deep seated fear of rejection; this may be true, I can be a little sensitive at times, but the main reason for not being desperate to increase my circle of friends is that I already like the ones that I have. Any more would be impossible to cope with. Think about it. Why do you lose touch with people? It’s not that you fell out, or became boring overnight; it’s because you were busy with a different social group at the time. There’s only 7 days in the week and, in my life with kids, realistically only a couple of those are for ‘proper’ round for dinner/up the pub type knees ups. So you prioritise. You have to. And before you know it so and so from such and such hasn’t had a call for 6 months.

Maybe I’m too old for online social networking. I’ve been on the planet for 36 years and I’ve met some fantastic people by just going to the pub. I’ve got a beautiful wife and 2 great kids, I’ve got extended family that live close by and I’ve got a telephone or two. Or maybe I’m just an old cynic.

This brings me to the point. There was a story in The Guardian recently (no I’m not a Guardian reader by choice) about Facebook and its link to the CIA (see www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jan/14/facebook). Interestingly, the journalist, Tom Hodgkinson, believes that a senior partner of Facebook, Howard Cox, is also on the board of In-Q-Tel, a company that he describes as ‘the venture-capital wing of the CIA’. Apparently, In-Q-Tel’s mission is to "identify and partner with companies developing cutting-edge technologies to help deliver solutions to the Central Intelligence Agency and the broader US Intelligence Community to further their missions".

Start the Twighlight Zone music now.

Do I believe this? To be honest I don’t know and I’m far too busy with my family, work and social commitments to find out. However, I do like a bit of gossip now and then.

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