Things I wish I liked: Twitter

When I first heard about Twitter circa 2008 I thought it was right up my alley. See, my favorite thing about Facebook is how you can write short little updates. Like today, I was making something in the crock pot and I said out loud, "And then you stir all the ingredients so that they blend together." I realized that I was performing a cooking show with Gus as my audience. I then realized that I always do this when I'm cooking. So I giggled, went to my computer (which was open right there in the kitchen because I was getting a recipe off of Pinterest; I'm so tech-savvy!) and wrote on Facebook:

"Anybody else pretend they're on a cooking show when they're cooking and make their baby pretend to be in the audience? No? Just me?"

It wasn't really enough for a whole blog but I did want to say it. I often have fleeting thoughts like that that I'd like to share so Tweeting sounded like the perfect outlet for me. I even liked the name and the lingo--Tweet, Retweet, Tweeted.

I also loved the fact that there was a character limit. That totally trumps Facebook, where people can ramble on and on about politics, mundane details of their laundry or the amazingness that is their dachshund.

So I got a Twitter account. We got off to a bad start when the "handle" Writinggal was already taken. I decided to call myself "RealWritinggal." I used it mostly for my now-defunct Workout of the Week. I would Tweet about whatever topic I was covering that week and then put a link to my blog. The people who started following me were fitness people. I soon learned it was good Twitter etiquette to follow people back.

And perhaps that's why I got the feeling that Twitter was very sales-y. Seemed like everyone was pushing something (including myself). I didn't know who to follow or what to Tweet. And worse, I didn't care! I never thought to check it to see what my followers or followees were doing because I didn't know most of them.

Now, over at Facebook, I may not have seen you since high school but I still like to know what's going on in your life. But Trista Sutter of the Bachelorette? I can keep up with you in US Weekly. I don't need to read your Tweets.

So, for me, the RealWritinggal, Tweeting just wasn't fun. It was a chore. It was something I needed to put on my To Do list: Fold Laundry, Turn in Story Ideas, Make Revisions to Article, Think of Something Clever to Tweet, Blog about things I wish I liked, Cook dinner while pretending to be on a cooking show. You can see how it could get lost in the shuffle of my glamorous life.

Plus, it's all complicated with its @ symbols and #hash tagging. I really don't think it's for people born before 1980.

Then somewhere along the way I lost my Twitter password. So I must apologize to my hundreds (dozens?) of Twitter followers. I've been MIA on Twitter for months. It sounded like a great idea. I hear that people love it, can't live without it. But for me, all I can say is:

Twitter, I wish I liked you, but I don't.