I have been involved with the world’s most powerful social networking site for about five years.

During the first year, everything was so new and exciting. I was able to find out what my friends were doing, who they were dating, what colour their hair was – all without ever picking up the phone. It was a truly wonderful arrangement for socially-inhibited and secretly voyeuristic people like me.

In the second year I felt like we were really starting to understand each other. Not only was I able to keep up with all my friends on one convenient website, now we could interact in more creative ways. I could draw graffiti art on my friend’s “wall” or give them hilarious little icons as gifts. And if I was pressed for time, a simple “poke” was an effective way to let someone know I was thinking about them.

By the third year I was completely, senselessly hooked. I couldn’t remember how my social life was even possible before I first signed up. Did people call me to make plans? Did I just show up at a party not knowing who else was going to be there? This was also the year of the first major profile re-design. I usually don’t handle change very well, but I was in so deep that I had no choice but to accept and adapt.

However, after three years of basically uninterrupted bliss, our relationship began to feel more one-sided in the fourth year. I still faithfully signed in about three times per day, but my heart wasn’t fully in it. The methods of communication were becoming too complicated and I missed the simple, pre-Farmville days. I posted a lot of funny cat videos in an attempt to feel like I wasn’t just going through the motions.

This year was the ultimate test for my feelings towards the site. While I still relied on it for planning my social life, my tolerance for the pointless drivel that flooded my news feed was wearing thin. And while I was trying to put less weight on the virtual world I had created, it was creating problems in my real life. Offhand comments were taken out of context and left on permanent display, and people were becoming offended that I didn’t want to be “tagged” in their photo albums.

Over the last five years my relationship with this website has become toxic. I can’t deny that there are social benefits, but I can’t ignore the ways in which it makes my daily life harder. I’ve weighed the pros and cons, and the bittersweet outcome is clear.

Facebook- this is the end. We’re just in different places. You want to keep growing and changing, and I can’t keep up anymore. It’s not you, it’s me.