Facebook

I know I have not posted here in quite some time. I apologize. Things have been very strange in my online world. This blog has been an exception to the rule, but generally, I attempt to maintain my privacy. Not everyone has my personal email address. I don't plaster photographs of myself all over the Internet in a Flickr account. Even the images I use for this blog and my Ask-A-Librarian avatar are not true images. Anyway...I deviated from my usual protective sphere and I now have an active Facebook account. Not to worry, I also use my caricature as my photo there. At each phase in my life, I tend to drop people when I get my new people. I have trouble with object permanence as it relates to me. If I go away, I assume people no longer remember me and I don't maintain contact with them. There have been a few exceptions over the years, but very, very few. But here's Facebook, this explosive social networking tool and people from my past are contacting me with requests to friend me. It is so bizarre! The other bizarre thing is to have people from all stages in my life in the same space. Because of my awkwardness about people remembering me or remembering me favorably, I have not been reaching out but rather accepting invitations. I did, however, contact one of my high school classmates who was on everyone's list but mine so far. It had been weeks and she still hadn't accepted my invitation. I thought, "great, 1986 called, your subscription to Inner-Loser has been renewed." Finally today she friended me. On the one hand, I wouldn't have cared if she had never reached out to me, but having reached out to her, I felt left hanging. So now I feel better. Facebook is a strange place. I'm playing virtual Scrabble with 3 friends from college. The group of 4 of us from college with the most turbulent history interact peacefully there. I do virtual gardening to save the rainforest with past and present LCLS employees, friends from high school and college, and people I used to supervise at Barnes & Noble. There are people who friended me but have never contacted me again even to say hello. It's just WEIRD and yet I can't stay away from it.