When facebook took him away

An ode to all those who earlier had someone in their lives who loved them…and now loves Facebook.

An ode to all those who earlier had someone in their lives who loved them…and now loves Facebook

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Facebook, the social networking site notched up 300 million users last week. One of these 300 million is the reason for my stress this week. Yes, this is the plea of a Facebook widow, and this week’s column is an ode to all wives, husbands, girlfriends or boyfriends who have someone in their lives who earlier loved them…and now loves Facebook.

My husband is a happy man these days…well he always has been, but the glow on his face and the twinkle in his eyes these days has nothing to do with my sometimes successful experiments in the kitchen (whoever said the road to a man’s heart is through his stomach should curl up in obsolescence and die) — it is because he’s excited about ‘owning’ and nurturing a farm of his own, courtesy Farmville, an online application on Facebook, the bane of my life.

Watching him glued to the computer playing Farmville for hours, still puts me in a better off position than my friend Deepa, whose boyfriend puts up an alarm on his phone, and wakes up in the middle of the night to ‘sell off’ the mature crops on his online farm, lest they go bad. But before you think something’s seriously wrong with just our men, you must know that we, the honorary members of ‘the frustrated spouses of Facebook and Farmville addicts association’ are in good company.

Ever since it’s launch on June 19, Farmville has turned 35 million people into online farmers, a record in itself. But the stress I want to talk about today is not just related to Facebook or any particular game on it. It is the stress of your partner being hooked on to a passion which does not involve you. In his defence, my husband can justifiably claim to be equally stressed about my addiction to reading or being glued to blackberry. Or Deepa’s, when all that she does is watch saas-bahu soaps on TV all day.

It is a human tendency that when it comes to our interests and hobbies, we see a justification in going overboard saying ‘I have a passion for it' but when it comes to our partners doing the same thing with theirs, we find a reason to crib and cry neglect. I feel if you are among those who are feeling stressed about something that your partner prefers over your company (unless that something is a human being and that my friends is the topic of a whole new column), the solution lies in two options. Join them or let them be.

The first one is simple, try to get interested in what your partner is so addicted to. Maybe that’ll double the joy, if you two start enjoying playing or competing with each other over a fun game. But if you feel you can’t bring yourself to liking something you’ve been cursing even in your dreams, then take a conscious decision to let your partner enjoy what he/she is doing rather than putting the added pressure of nagging on their heads. Find a hobby for yourself — you may just find the peaceful co-existence, that of two people in harmony but doing their own thing — not just acceptable but maybe a much preferred option. What do you think?

Sonal Kalra tried her hand at Farmville secretly…and all her crops were eaten by an online cow from the neighbour’s farm. Mail your calmness tricks to her at sonal.kalra@hindustantimes.com