..Jon Simonds..
........bio...
home..


Facebook Knows Best
The Basically Brooklyn Series

Anthony, from Brooklyn, is in the market for a good therapist. While he survived his midlife crisis with little if any damage, he is currently going through a major identity crisis.

It all started with a notification from Facebook. The alleged notice was sent to inform Anthony ‘that you do not have an account with Facebook. You've erroneously been logging into the account of someone with the same name. In lieu of all the friends on this account seeking to befriend the real you, we have opened an account on your behalf. Please stop using this account and go to your real account. We are supplying a temporary user name and password. Please feel free to log in at any time. Your Friends at Facebook.'

This notification only complicated matters for Anthony, Tony to his friends, recently shared a study by Researchers at the University of Cambridge and Stanford University regarding Facebook. The results of the study indicate Facebook is the real you. This is a very frightening finding. Anthony is single, having divorced roughly several years ago. Recently he raved about this woman he met. He talked about the butterflies in the pit of his belly as he worked up the nerve to ask her to dinner. He posted about the chemistry shared as they discussed one another's lives, related to different things and most important of all, laughed over things beyond any individual's control. And then it was done.

He pined for an explanation as to what went wrong and she finally relinquished.

"It was the night we spent together," she explained.
"We spent a night together?" Tony asked.

They had one date. He took her home. They shared a kiss at her front door. She didn't invite him in. (He was relieved. She wasn't fast.) He went home.

"When did we spend the night together?"
"The night we went to dinner. As soon as you went home I logged onto my Facebook account and cut right to the mustard. I went straight to your page. You know how people think people are one way and then after the courting and the commitment, only then do the true colors come shining through! I crawled into bed with my laptop and spent the night with the real you. And let me tell you something, Buster…"

Researchers at the aforementioned study developed a personality algorithm (a step by step set of operations) based on FB user likes and found the algorithm's conclusions proved Facebook knew its users better than anyone including any given user's spouse.

To make matters worse Anthony received a follow-up notification informing him that he was no longer he. That in fact, FB was really him and he was merely a visitor, checking in to see how he was doing, because prospective employers and dinner dates and people are watching him. Even the ones he has forgotten.

Now Anthony is looking for a therapist because he thinks he's really Mickey Rourke in that classic movie Angel Heart with Robert DeNiro. You know. The one where Rourke walks around muttering, "I know who I am. I know who I am."

* * *