So About Facebook ...

I've been thinking about writing this post for a while. Probably six weeks ago I joined Facebook at the invitation of someone I was in Finland with (we were exchange students back in the stone age). My Facebook experience has snowballed from that initial point of contact, to where perhaps for two whole weeks I was almost paralyzed by the onslaught of reconnections, old friends found, and bridges mended. Frankly, it was overwhelming. Imagine, every day a blast-from-the-past! Blasted indeed ...

I think that I'd mentioned earlier that I'm not your go-to-gal for keeping in touch. Interested in high-school classmates' gossip? I can't help you. Wonder what what's-her-face did after graduation, and did the really smart chick from Art History 100 go on to run Sotheby's? I haven't the foggiest notion. It's not that I don't care ... I just don't invest the energy. This isn't always a good thing, but as I learned over the past month, I use it as a handy filter.

I like to blame my childhood, full of frequent moves and the eventual realization that early friendships are often based on convenience and not true affinity. Where and when I did form deep attachments, I also learned that the inevitable parting was made more painful. But lots of folks have disjointed upbringings, some much more so than I, and they don't cut everyone out as soon as they move on. I wonder if I haven't gotten used to an emotional crutch that allows me to rationalize how I process losses: slowly and imperfectly. I am a bad long-distance friend.

Of course, my willingness to walk away engenders its own deeper loss, or ensures the break I already anticipate. Even when I reconnect, I have very few skills in authentically reforming a friendship. Where do you start when ten, fifteen or even twenty years have passed by? Do you even try? I think that I'd like to put forth the effort, despite my little social handicap. So the past month has been filled with the joy of finding people I have and do care for, as well as the conflicting emotions of insecurity and hope. It's been an unexpected and potentially cathartic experience. Of course, every contact brings with it a potential fresh failure, but that's the "risk-averse" part of me thinking.

Now if only I could stop taking those stupid little quizzes ...

Facebook still has me flummoxed. I really hope I get a second (or third) chance at connecting with a few folks. If not, I'll now know that it wasn't for a lack of at least the most basic of efforts. It's the deeper stuff that might still elude me. That isn't a pleasant thought.