There was a time, ladies and gentlemen, when polite society dictated that we responded in the affirmative to visiting the home of a family member (loved or not) or a friend (loved or not) in order to view the slide show of their latest vacation.

Actual, physical slides, mind you.  Placed in a carousel and projected on an actual screen for everyone to see.

There was a time when we stood around the proverbial water cooler, or in the back alley, or at the local coffee shop, or in a bar in order to discuss current events or to recount the goings on of the day.

These were colloquially known as bull sessions.

There was a time when we gathered our news and information from physical sources.

There was a time when we would learn of the birth and passing, along with all of the events in between of our friends and loved ones by any of those aforementioned means.

Nowadays, we don’t have those luxuries of interacting with other members of our species.

Actually we do.

We just don’t use them as much as we used to.

Instead, we go to the special, one of a kind seat in the house where we drop trou and then open up our favorite social media application on our smart phones and then proceed to pass the time as we endeavor to pass other stuff.

Upon scrolling through my newsfeed (aka vapid twatitude) on FaceBook this morning while properly seated in my social media chamber, I came to a point where I couldn’t stand it anymore.  I exited the app, opened my notes app and fat thumbed out a prompt for today’s dispatch of verbal brilliance to an otherwise dull internet:

There comes a time in all of our lives when the day’s experience on social media gets interrupted by an outlandishly stupid statement in which its author made the deliberate effort to commit such carelessness in plain, clear, ‘Murcanized Englitch, that you, as the recipient of that information via your newsfeed generally are given three choices:

• Make a mental note about the stupidity and proceed with reading more of your newsfeed
• Alienate your fellow monetized data unit which also serves as a friend / loved one in real life by calling bullshit on their act of stupidity
• Close out the app and wonder for the millionth time why you keep visiting the damn place in the first place

Now it should probably go without saying that my most common response to these events is to exercise the first and third options.  It’s pretty rare to never that I will alienate someone for what they’ve posted.

Just because I consider the behavior to be vapid twatitude, doesn’t mean that it actually is.  Afterall, perception is a wonderful thing.

The sad thing is that I use social media to maintain connections with certain people with whom I would have no connection otherwise.

Hang on a minute.  I gotta go back and read that sentence and make sure it makes sense.

Last week, two different people from my recent and distant past left us a lot earlier than any of us would have wanted.  Had it not been for social media, I would have never known.

So where am I going with this?

I’ve laid out a reason to leave social media and the inherent consequences involved.

For now, my presence on social media will stay in place under the same paradigm I’ve used for the last few years.  Links to my efforts to Blog America Great will continue to be placed on my TharpSter Facebook page and Twitter feed.  Where my personal Facebook page is concerned, I’ll continue stay tangentially updated on the connections I’ve developed with other monetized data units, avoid posting and reading vapid twatitude, and post the occasional status update.

So I told you all of that so I could tell you this.

While in the process of determining my options on how to deal with the idiocy I perceive on social media, I harkened back to a comment that was made to me by my primary point of contact for all things Beto. 

“Randy, I think you might be on the spectrum.”

The remark had been made in response to some quick witted remark I had made just moments before.  I don’t remember if it was directed to her or not.  None the less, her attempts to shut me up didn’t really get the best of me.  “Well that would probably explain the misanthropic solipsism now, wouldn’t it?”

For the most part, I had set the suggestion about the spectrum on the back burner to ponder later.  I would have been pretty offended if she was trying to suggest that I subscribed to Spectrum cable.  As it is now, I just subscribe involuntarily to their junk mail delivery service. 

A few weeks ago, there was an incident at the cubicle farm where I derive income.  The intercom system which usually announces a fire drill announced that there was an armed intruder in the building, and we (the crops in the cubicles) needed to take appropriate action.

People freaked out over what turned out to be a false alarm.  The company subsequently offered on-site counselling for those who were interested.

Where I was concerned, it was just another Tuesday.  I just didn’t care.  I didn’t feel the need to talk to anyone about it.  The sound of that warning didn’t echo in my cavernous headspace for more than a minute at best. In the days that followed that event, I marveled at just how many people were visibly unnerved about the errant alarm when I couldn’t even locate a hairy rat’s ass to contribute to the discussion.

So a week later, while processing my apathy for the armed intruder, and after reading a sufficient quantity of vapid twatitude on Facebook while properly nestled in my social media chamber, I harkened back to that suggestion that had been made about me a few weeks earlier. 

I opened a browser on the vast collection of computers and servers networked together for the purpose of enhancing communication, and I asked it a question.  “Am I on the spectrum?”

Among the responses, I found offers to enhance my television and internet experience and the promise for more junk mail.  I also found a quiz which would help me make that determination about being on the spectrum.

In taking that quiz, I knew right off the bat there could be up to four different outcomes:

• No signs of being on the spectrum
• Full on, balls to the wall on the spectrum
• Displays some signs of being on the spectrum

Upon seeing the results of the quiz along with the links to on-line therapy, I determined my initial assessment was correct and that the fourth of the possible outcomes was the one that applied the most.

• I just don’t give a shit

Easy as that.  If I’m on the spectrum, I don’t care.  If I’m not on the spectrum, I don’t care. 

If I’m on Spectrum, I do care.  I don’t want to be on Spectrum.

I know why I am the way that I am.  It’s based on a culmination of life experiences (good and bad) and how the vast network of coping mechanisms that I possess have driven my path over the course of my lifetime. 

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Nothing else.