the facebook (or fb, as we say) honeymoon is officially over... like with most addictions, i hesitated at first... normally, i shun internet overload... it's all i can do to write emails and keep a blog... but word on the street was that it was about connecting, in a safe, non-threatening kind of way...
it has to be... instead of meeting new unknown people, like most social networking sites, you hook up with people you already know... or have known... and have not communicated with in 20 years... therein lies the rub...
at first, it was kind of exciting to be in touch with people from high school, be able to "meet" friends of my sister who lives in brooklyn, and put up photos that i would only share with close friends and acquaintances... it was even safe to put up pictures of my impossibly photogenic nephews...
then reality set in... a bout of "friending" friends (how do you make a friend out of someone who is already a friend?!) from work led to connections not unlike that old shampoo commercial from the 70s... "and so on, and so on"...
suddenly, my ex-husband and my boss were among my people... then came the high school buddies... i might have looked up one guy i was on the newspaper with in senior year... but of course, he had friends that connected to me... our class president searched for all of the class of '83 and now i'm "friends" with people i never knew, never spoke to, and certainly have not thought of in years...
the funny thing is that fb is like a time machine... everyone seems to assume their old roles once again... i was not popular, but i would not say i was unpopular... sadly, i dated the most unpopular guy in not just my school, but possibly the entire south bay school district... M., a peripheral "friend" who actually knew my two sisters quite well (they were popular!) reminded me of the fact that i publicly humiliated my unpopular, trombone-playing boyfriend in front of the whole marching band when i broke up with him... lamely, i responded with something like, 'i'm glad that amused you'...
what i really should have said to M. (who is still a "friend," although i have not written on his wall, sent him a grapefruit or poked him since) is that i was sorry that he had not grown up more than that despite what seems to be a very harmonious marriage and family life and a successful career...
i finally broke down and told my sister Joselyn about what happened months later... she asked me, 'did he write it on your wall or did he send you a message?'... i really could not remember at that point... but the next time i was on fb, i looked in my inbox to see if he had sent me what she was implying was a more discreet message... then i remembered i had deleted a lot of old messages...
but i don't think that absolves him... what bothered me is that he brought it up at all... it was not my proudest moment... and although my old boyfriend did turn out to be a creep, he did not deserve to be embarrassed in front of his peers... although i really wish i could remember what i did...
i do remember that after one huge and final blowup - he did skulk around my house for a while and pester me at school; this before we knew what stalking meant - i threw a paper bag full of his old love letters (wow, i used to get love letters!) onto the roof of Savon on 190th... for some reason, i thought that would eject him from my life forever... and it did...
unfortunately, even though i can't remember half my passwords, or accidentally delete lots of things i regret, the internet appears to be forever... although the old letters on the drugstore roof have by now completely vaporized, every hasty word or social faux pas can go out to a few million of my fellow fb-ers in the blink of an eye...
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