Facebooking

Facebook is a weird place. Recently I saw that one of my FB friends was tagged in a video and so I clicked on it. OH MY GOODNESS it was so clearly post-coital that I had to avert my eyes. If I wanted to see half-dressed people making gooey faces at each other, I would-- I would--

...I can't finish that sentence because I just don't want to see half-dressed people making gooey faces at each other. Just. Don't. It was all the more squirm-inducing because this was a guy I'd had a terrible crush on all through high school and then dated off and on during college. NO GOOEY FACES, PLEASE.

Sometimes I'll see the weirdest pairings-- my vaguely hippie friend who's always posting left-leaning political stuff is attending the Leonid meteor shower with my friend who left behind his birth name to become Fr. John Paul, a Dominican priest. Let's hope they don't try to talk about the Stupak amendment around the figurative punchbowl, or there could be fireworks of the non-celestial variety.

Also? I just got a friend request from John Michael Talbot. This is puzzling.

I haven't been back to the town where I went to high school since 1994 -- my parents moved away in 1995 and the people I stayed in touch with all seemed to live somewhere else. But there's a big knot of high school people who are all FB friends and so I have been seeing these faces and names that haven't been on my radar for years. It is, I reiterate, a weird place, where this strange gallimaufry of the thoughtful and the frivolous assails you when you log in: "I ate too much for dinner and I'm stuffed," says one woman I haven't seen since 1987. "My mom's been dead for 20 years tomorrow," says another. And that's from one page of status updates tonight. It could give a person whiplash.

Comments

[Maria]

You've taught me a new word tonight! I've never heard of gallimaufry before, what a helpful addition to my vocab.

[Lilian]

I don't like facebook, period. I think my contacts' updates are pretty harmless and not as extremely different from each other as to give me whiplash, but still... I don't feel like posting ANYTHING there.

UGH about that video!

[Amie]

I both love and hate Facebook. I love how I've reconnected with people I would never of heard from again, probably ever. I can't stand stupid status updates, and when people update constantly, and chronic complainers.

[bearing]

I know what you mean -- one reason why I'm keeping my friend list really small. The thought of having every single member of my high school class possibly reading anything I have to say makes my head feel funny.

At the same time I'm totally comfortable with having a personal, non-anonymous blog that's visible to the entire internet. Go figure.

[Sarah]

Facebook, meh. I can see why people love it, but honestly I just don't have the time. I love my blogs and the people I have been coming to know through this medium, and I love Ravelry. Apart from that, I don't need the time-suck. I have only so much time on this earth and I'm not sure that it's a big benefit for me.

But, like I said, I can see the appeal on some level. It's like seeing how someone decorated the inside of their locker.

[Tall Kate]

I like FB. I like the people I've managed to reconnect with (mostly from college). I am very fond of the the button that allows me to hide people's status updates, and I'm a fan of the one that allows me reject friend requests from random people who I don't feel up to connecting with. I generally like the interesting things people link to. I like that I can update as often as I like, and "participate" as little or as much as I want to. It helps me keep in touch with friends and family.

But I do agree that some people *really* let it *all* hang out on there, and I think that's weird!

[Anne B.]

Can I just say that my teenagers and facebook is a nightmare! I hate it and wish it was never invented!