Now that I have one, how do I play it?

Now that I have one, how do I play it?

I just signed up for Facebook, and I'm asking myself the same question I asked when I bought that Epiphone Dot Studio gathering dust over in the corner: Now that I have one, how do I play it? Because it's not as easy as I thought. Electric guitar or Facebook account, you don't just plug in and start shredding. At least I don't.

I'm surprised that Facebook doesn't seem to offer a "getting started" tutorial, because to me it's anything but intuitive. That's not something I'd say about LinkedIn, or about the Internet in general. Which suggests I wasn't born to boogie on Facebook. So why am I there? I'm divulging the answer to that question strictly on a need-to-know basis, but it wasn't so I could sell more homes. I'm so buried in real estate these days that I don't have a life to post about, which is another reason I might not be Facebook material.

Like a new-born babe absorbing life, Facebook fills me with innocent wonder. Like, how come one of the first friend requests I get—bang! as soon as I'm live—is from an attractive woman I don't know who lists her sole interest as "men"? You've seen my head shot, right? Do I look like a good time?

And how come when I list my interests on my thingy (wall? Wall?) I end up looking like a pretentious twit? Paste my personal philosophy, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you", on a bleak, unforgiving Facebook wall and even I say give me a break. My political beliefs? "Not as liberal as I think." Hey! Thanks for sharing! My favorite quotation? Really, it's "the condemned man ate a hearty breakfast", and it's hilarious—trust me—when it flashes through my mind as I'm bucking myself up to do something I don't enjoy. On my wall? Not so much. Interests? Yes, I have a few—reading, writing and listening to trash music—but Facebook doesn't tell you its maximum character count, so now my interests are "reading, writing and" (what? 'rithmetic?). Which would be fine, except that Facebook won't let me edit it. But hey! who aspires to precise communication in everyday conversation? Me. Who inspires me?, Facebook asks. Any great writer, I feel impelled to respond, but Facebook won't let me (perhaps fortunately), even after I save my changes. Repeatedly. And every time Facebook emails that I have "notifications pending", the page I link to says I have no notifications.

This changes everything!

So what we have here is either a fairly crappy program that's taken the world by storm simply because we're social animals seduced by electronic communication, or something so hip it's AARP-proof. And Mark Zuckerberg is our new Thomas Edison? Maybe he's more like our new Merv Griffin, game show developer extraordinaire.

Okay, obviously I don't get Facebook, but apparently some agents do, because I'm told they play it like a violin or maybe an Epi Dot Studio. Let's peek in on one as she shares that "a little service visit at the car dealership has turned into new breaks". Not only does this spellbind her many fans, it tells the whole world, including her peers reading about her in California Real Estate, the California Association of Real Estate's monthly magazine, that she doesn't know how to spell "brakes".

That's the "brakes", I guess.

For Sale: One Facebook wall in mint condition. Low miles, never posted on. Not even by a little old lady on Sundays.