Another Facebook Post

Facebook turned five recently and as we all know birthdays are a time for celebrating and reflecting. So I broke my diet with Betty Crocker's Super Moist Dark Chocolate Cake and sat down to reflect. And realised that if I ever took myself off Facebook, the only thing I'd really miss is it's version of Texas Hold 'Em Poker.

Now, I'm no gambler. In real life, I wouldn't even bet on myself. But in a Facebook poker room, I take on a different persona. I play with thousands of dollars as if they were nothing (they are nothing - it's fake money, but still), I take risks that could take me to dizzying heights or depressing lows. I think, I calculate, I bluff, I judge others on the table, I'm immersed in the game, making and losing fortunes over single hands. And amidst all this nerve-wracking, finger-biting gambling, the one thing I cannot bear is unnecessary chit-chat.

Being a married woman of a certain age, my interest in Facebook poker has always been purely in the entertainment it provides. I like to get in, make my virtual thousands and get the hell out. But as I've discovered during my many hours of poker playing, that many not necessarily be the case with my fellow players.

Take for the instance, the indiscriminate flirt. Here is a man who walks into a poker room and instantly buys everyone there a drink. Once the drinks have been bought and his entrance noted, he settles down and starts checking out all the players in detail - what they look like, how much they are worth - that sort of thing. Sometimes two or three females catch his fancy and he starts a conversation with all of them. Usually at least one responds to his come-ons and she's the one he continues to flirt with for the rest of the session. What these flirtations culminate into, I'm not really sure. Who knows, maybe one day, one of these couplings will live to tell their grandchildren how they met in an online poker room.

Then there is, poker buddy fanatic. I'm still not sure what a poker buddy is and what he or she is entitled to. But every day I enter a poker room where a complete stranger sends me a request to be his poker buddy. Some people have the courtesy to buy you a drink before they do that, most just send a request without even a precursory hi. Why anyone thinks I would ever respond to a poker or any other buddy request by a complete stranger is a mystery. Maybe this is all part of the whole accumulate-as-many-friends-as-you-can conspiracy FB is perpetrating.

Somewhere toward the end of the day emerges another species of chit-chatters: the Indian boy who feels obliged to strike up a conversation when he sees an Indian girl. As the western hemisphere prepares to sleep and the eastern hemisphere is mid way through their work day, poker rooms tend to fill up with young men in India taking a break from their day's work. No harm there, everybody deserves a break. But where is it stated that this boy-on-a-break has to say hi to you as soon as he sees you and ask you where you're from? Aren't my name and photograph dead give-aways of my ethnicity? And why do you think that just because we're both desis I want to make inane conversation with you about god knows what? In the real world, would you just go over to a stranger and ask her where she's from?? Then why this break from social proprietary in the virtual world? Why can't you just shut up and play your turn??

Of course, I understand that not everyone feels as hostile about chatting in a poker room as I do. There's a new-ish phenomenon in profile pictures I've noticed that's usually an indicator that you're here to play more than just poker - the two-girls wrapped in some sort of embrace profile picture. This picture is usually taken in a bar and shows two girls with their arms wrapped around each other as they smile or laugh or sometimes just glare. I was a little bit confused by this particular style of photography at first since I always figured a profile picture to be more of a solitary style snapshot. So that, you know, we may know what that person looks like? But clearly, some people believe in the two heads is better than one axiom. It also always works well as a conversation stimulant in a chat room.

So you see, a Facebook poker room is not only a great place to kill hours of your life but also a biting insight into the world of virtual human behaviour. Of course all this talk of poker has got me a antsy. Time for me to head into one of those rooms, close my ears to the incessant chatter and make my monies. I'm just a few thousands away from making pro-250 K.