Should I be a little more public with my life?

Depends on who you are trying to impress. In my opinion, you shouldn’t have to do that. If you want to hang out with judgmental, peer pressuring douchebags, sure.

FB is not the way to connect with real live people. You need to get off the computer and out.

You could do that, but if you’re not comfortable doing that, you have other options. You can take classes, or engage in group activities—dancing, glass-blowing, softball, religion, etc, etc. All of these will expose you to others and give you opportunities to make friends. It might even be cooler because these people like doing what you like to do.

In fact, I would look at online sites devoted to these activities in your area. You’ll likely get connected much faster with targeting “going public” than you will on Facebook.

I don’t think it’s FB that helps people get together with people though I guess you can begin checking out more events posted through FB. Outgoing people are outgoing on FB and introverted people are still like that on FB.

Try meetup.com to find groups doing things you are interested in.

A few years ago there were people there still are, I believe who made friends and were befriended and Facebook didn’t even exist!!!!!

NO NO NO! Do not let Facebook become your life or create an image of your life.

FB has a tendency to spread your business all over the place where it needs not to be spread. Be very careful and discriminating about what you post on FB and who can see your postings.

Your best bet to meet people and make friends is by learning to be a good conversationalist, and then participating in activities that are fun and interesting and meaningful to you, that way you can get to know a bunch of people who you already have built in common interests with you, rather than you trying to fit in or fit the mold so that you can fit in.

Don’t be a wallflower. Don’t let your shyness or the all encompassing “social anxiety” stop you from becoming an interesting and worthy person. Not sure how old you are, but I’m afraid that the internet (texting and FB in particular) have lead people to stop learning how to interact in real situations with real people. When most of us middle aged and older folks on Fluther were young, we had to learn how to properly interact with everybody, from our teachers, to our neighbors to our friends and team mates in a one on one, face to face (or even on the telephone) manner. We were expected to learn how to introduce ourselves properly to older folks and how to conduct ourselves in a civilized manner at school, with our friends and at our relative’s homes and out in public.

Today, too many young people have never even learned to make small talk, or to introduce themselves, or to learn proper phone etiquette. Communication and social interaction has almost become obsolete, and without social interaction you are more likely to end up sad, depressed and ultimately alone.

Take the time, now, while you are young, to learn how to talk to people. Men, women, boys, girls, teachers, elderly folks, relatives that you barely know, everybody. You’ll be so much better off in the long run and when you know how to comfortably talk to people and put them at ease, you will be come a person that other people want to be around.

On the other hand, if you just sit around in your room and text and FB, but never actually talk to people, you will become more isolated as time goes by. Check out this Question from yesterday. There was a lot of advice and discussion about how to meet people and make friends.

FB has a place, but it really should be limited and be used much more discreetly than is often done and it should never be a place to boast, or to make yourself appear to be someone that you’re not, nor should it ever be a place to post pictures or comments of what should be private moments. And don’t be one of those people who collect friends simply to make it look like you are more popular. Use it to stay in contact with people that are important to you, and never use it to intimidate, embarrass or hurt anybody else. Gossip used to be bad enough back in the day before the internet, now it can be deadly.

And don’t worry if you don’t end up with a bunch of friends. If you are lucky, in your life, you will end up with one or two great friends that will be worth way more than tens or twenties or even hundreds of mediocre acquaintences. Cherish those people and nurture those relationships and don’t worry about what everybody else is doing or what anybody else thinks. Just be a good, interesting, smart, funny, sweet, compassionate, educated,hard working, forward thinking, useful person and you will attract similar folks.

I hardly ever use facebook and I don’t really have any friends either, but I really don’t think there’s any actual causal effect there.