i had to join myspace when i started my job. i thought it was a total waste of time, but i was supposed to do it. so i did. i was mildly entertained with myspace. i liked adjusting all the details of my page. i talked S into creating a page so we could both spy on people we used to know together. then i got bored with it. right about then facebook became all the rage and we were ordered to get on facebook for work. so i did. i hated facebook. it was so confusing and seemed so boring in the beginning. once i finally got the hang of it i liked it. i convinced S to join too. now i’m definitely more entertained by facebook and rarely check my myspace. but i keep them both active. not only for work, but also because some people aren’t on facebook and most of those people who are at least have their myspace page public so i can still spy.
since then i’ve had dilemmas with facebook. with myspace it was easy because i only linked to people i had to for work and friends that i never get to talk to enough. i found some people i used to hang with and rekindled communications too. but with facebook it doesn’t seem to be as simple. my graduating class started some pages for our reunion but i couldn’t join them because i don’t want everyone at work to know my age. so whenever i want to comment on these pages i have to join, write my comment, and unjoin. this way it’s not on my profile for my coworkers and clients to see.
but since i joined facebook and dug up all the people i wanted to “friend” it’s been weird. there’s been this phenomenon lately of people i went to school with, but wasn’t necessarily friends with, friending me. and whenever i see one of these i think “oh great! she’s someone i wouldn’t mind being in touch with” and once i accept their friend request i never hear anything from them. i don’t get it. whenever i friend someone i haven’t seen or talked to in a long time i send them an email. asking how things are, getting in touch. i’ve had people accept my friend request and then never reply back to my email. why? why are people so willing to be facebook friends but have no interest in being real life friends? what’s the point of that? it seems very much like high school to me where you pretend to be friends with someone but don’t really want to be. and i’m very clear on my stance of not supporting that.
what is this about? why do people want to add you to their “friend” list but not really have any sort of friendship? this has been bothering me for a while and each time i get a friend request from old acquaintances i always think that they’re actually interested in being friends. silly me. this has been one of my major points of frustration with facebook, and yet it has nothing to do with the application.
then i got an email from facebook today. one telling me that my ex, the one i moved here with, this same one, was requesting to be my “friend”. umm…. uhh… i really didn’t know what to do. i took the opportunity to peak at his profile and saw nothing interesting. but i’m having a tough time with the request. we’re not friends. i don’t really want to be friends. so for the most part i’m thinking, we’re not friends in real life so why should we be facebook friends? at the same time it’s not that we’re enemies but the last time he was in town i declined hanging out with him because i felt it wasn’t appropriate. the boy invited me to be his guest at someone’s wedding. it was awkward that he even invited me but i agreed that we could hang out later that weekend, but he never called (phew). we’re definitely on speaking terms, we just don’t. but now i have a dilemma. if i accept his friend request he’ll know what’s going on with my life and more importantly with M. he’ll see pictures of us. i’m not worried about his feelings, it’s just none of his business. and we never spoke about our love lives after we broke up and maintained a friendship so it’s not really something i want to start spilling now that we don’t communicate.
then the other option is that i decline or ignore the request. and my assumption is that when i never respond he’ll think “that bitch”. and again, it’s not that i care about him not liking me. but i just feel kind of guilty because there are so many people on my “friend” list that i’m less of friends with than him.
it’s crazy how these applications have changed the way people communicate and now it’s changing the social problems too. what’s a girl to do? if this were you, what would you do? i don’t really want to build our friendship back up and honestly i’m still a little concerned about the accusations his crazy ex made. i don’t know that i believe them but i also never completely ruled them out.
grrr… freakin technology.
~ today i learned… the National Spelling Bee started in 1925… in 1926 the winning word was “abrogate”~
