Circle of Friends

I was a very reluctant Facebook member.

I love technology and all the ways it has made my life easier.
Cell phones for me and my kids. No hollering down the street that it is dinner time.
Something on TV for everyone, at any time of day or night. Without having to adjust the antennae or horizontal hold.
Movie tickets purchased in advance on line – so you don’t have to show up and wait in a line 2 hours before the Justin Bieber Director’s Cut starts and endure the shrill overexcitement of the other viewers.
Programmable coffee makers. Enough said.

But for all things social, I am more a traditionalist. I prefer real face to face interaction. Or at a minimum, telephone time.

I’ve mentioned that I am in Human Resources. I hire for a living. An online dating service or something similar is, to me, an inferior way to make some pretty important judgments…and therefore some pretty important distinctions. As in “You get my attention” vs. “You will go in the trash bin.”

It is the equivalent of someone looking good on paper and then walking into your office wearing a live animal on his head. There is no way to tell anything about a person’s chemistry, philosophy, ethics, values, sense of humor, and lets not forget hygiene (thank you Casey, for making that part of my list of hurdles to clear) from a profile on a social website.

But when I got my invitation to my college reunion and called my roommate Jane to ask if she intended to go, she offered me a deal. She’ll go with me, if I open a Facebook account. So, to seal the deal, I opened one while we were on the phone together. As a sign of good faith, even though I never intended to use it at all.

But then Jane began to suggest friends to me. And suggest me to other friends of hers. And suddenly I was somewhat well connected and in touch with people I’d never expected to correspond with again.

And I came to view FB as a big widespread stay at home cocktail party – that no one has to get dressed up for or show up on time to enjoy. You talk to people you want to talk with, and ignore conversations you have no interest in. And have sidebar conversations occasionally so no one overhears your comments, snarky ones especially.

And it is a great place to showcase you clever musings on life, or brag about your kids, or flaunt your exotic vacation (and sometimes inadvertently announce to the entire FB reading world that you are in Barbados and no one is home to stop an intruder if one were inclined to just go help themselves to your jewelry and fine arts collection.)

But it has its drawbacks. My mother’s entire extended family has Friend Requested me…and for a while I accepted. Until I realized that would be like walking into a Fun House with lots of booby traps and trap doors and stopped accepting them. I am sure I have offended lots of Estelle’s kin. I am also sure she has, too, so I am not terribly concerned.

And then there was J. A card carrying Facebook foe for years. Didn’t like the openness of it. The exposure. The accessibility to other adults, evidently.

So when I opened an account, he did moments later and friended me. At the time, no big deal. My brother-in-law and nephews friended him too.

And then I read his profile. All about me.

Weeks later, I had to unfriend him.

Then he put his status as engaged to me. I’d already broken up with him. Not pretty. I nearly choked when our friends at Facebook sent me an email to confirm the engagement. I am sure they thought it odd that we weren’t even friends.

They had no idea how odd.