I am trying super hard to be one of those Pinterest people.

If you’re not familiar with Pinterest, I’ll try to explain. It’s basically a virtual pinboard of stuff. Pictures of things you like. You find the pictures, or a link to a Web site or recipe or whatever, and you “pin” it (or an image representing “it”) on a “board” that you “create” (note the use of quotation marks to imply “virtual” things—I’m cool like that).

So I got the invitation to join a while back, and I’m on there poking around probably once or twice a day, but I have to be honest with you.

I don’t really get it. I think I’m doing it wrong.

When I’m on Pinterest, totally wasting time I don’t have, I feel oddly hypnotized. Imagine:

…Peeking into someone else’s brain and seeing the thousands of images that flash through their neurons each second. Pictures of shoes and felt acorn necklaces. And then multiply that by lots of thousands of people.

…Mind-reading. Voyeuristically.

…Flipping through a catalog that never ends and actually keeps growing longer and longer.

You know that episode of SpongeBob where he visits his friends in their dreams?  And he learns, for instance, that his pet snail Gary is really an erudite scholar inside his own mind, who speaks non-meowing English with a British accent? It’s like that.

In other words, it’s a little creepy.

Am I just a Pinterest loser? I don’t use it to actually go and DO anything. I just gape at it. Or admire the cleverness of other people and wish that I, too, could be that clever with my boards. My boards are boring.

For example, I have a board called “Ideas I Like.” Pretty self-explanatory. On that board, I’ve been pinning pictures of ideas that, well, I like. (Turns out I only like about three or four ideas at present.)

I also have one called “My Kids Will Eat That,” which is reserved for recipes and photos of food that I believe my children might actually consume. You know, a piece of salami creatively transformed into an Angry Bird (shown right). Or run-of-the-mill green beans. Stuff like that. (But I have yet to try a single recipe that I’ve pinned.)

My favorite board is called “Rooms That Are Missing from My House,” where I post pictures of the things that the morons—excuse me, architects—who designed my home idiotically left out, such as a laundry room with actual ROOM (shown below), or a pantry that doesn’t force you to duck in order to enter, and so on. It’s like a wish list for my house. But it’s not like I’m going to go out and start construction tomorrow.

I guess I just want people to know what my ideal house would look like. Or, in the case of my “Random Work-Inspiring Stuff” board, I want them to know all the fabulous motivational words and photos that drive me, daily, to keep chugging along. Fortune-cookie quotes like, “We are made to persist. That’s how we find out who we really are.”

Really? Is that how?

See, I think a huge part of the lure of Pinterest is that it lets you show off your wit and creativity in a “HEY! Look at ME!” kind of way, without actually demanding you DO anything. Pinterest is totally public to its members, so anyone can see anyone’s boards and pins—kind of like Twitter, except with pictures and ideas, and none of that useless shortened link business. People can follow you on Pinterest, like they can on Twitter, but here’s the kicker: There’s little to no reading required. I think that’s the other big percentage of the attraction. This isn’t a blog where you have to write all the time to be involved. It’s not Etsy—no knitting or whatever the Etsy people do is required. (That comment was all in good fun, my Etsy friends.) You can just sit and gaze at Pinterest. Mindlessly stare at the pretty pictures. It’s a giant room full of passive gawkers.

For example, just because I like the picture (shown below) of the oatmeal canister someone turned into a headband holder doesn’t mean I have to go try and make the darn thing. PUH-LEASE. But I can repin the photo and let the world know I admire the notion, so I look crafty and cute. And then other people repin my pin, and we all smile.

Well, not everyone smiles. On my Pinterest home page today, I noted an argument going on between two people I’ve never heard of. It seems SOMEONE has been pinning IRRELEVANT things to a board that is supposed to be about trending parent topics. UH-OH. See, in addition to creating your own boards, you can also create community boards where everyone pins to share ideas. The problem is that, much like real community bulletin boards, someone always has to come along and post “Have you seen my kitten” flyers on top of the “Take my number if you want a ride to Austin” and “Sign up for this seminar” stuff. Which makes the people in charge of those boards cranky.

I don’t go near the community boards. People on Pinterest can be mean.

Okay, okay. I’m probably spoiling it for you. Or making you mad because I don’t get it (which, incidentally, I stated outright at the beginning of this post.) And maybe everyone else is out there actually using Pinterest as a jumping off point for fulfilling dreams or implementing new and exciting ideas. For me, though, it’s just a visual time suck. And if that means I’m a bad pinner, you can stick that…well, on your own board.

Happy pinning from your friend at: http://pinterest.com/sarahcclose/