Been playin' a lot on Facebook lately. Well, it has its limits. There's that big surge at the start, then you run out of people to bother. But I'm having fun with it. I've been reassembling my life, getting in touch with a lot of people who I'm sure didn't expect to ever hear my name again let alone actually get an email from me. It's fun going through all the names you can remember for people who you knew at different stages in your life.
My next door neighbor, for instance, Lynder. We never talked very much but we saw a lot of each other while we were both in grade school. I saw her name as a friend of a friend so I got in touch with her. She didn't remember me and was extremely cautious at first. This was at least forty years ago. I finally proved myself by mentioning her dog's name, Bagel, and all the years that had passed disappeared and we were neighbors again. Over the course of the next week we communicated back and forth more than we spoke in the twenty-seven years we lived next to each other. That was a long time ago. Now it's someone else's house, and it's really someone else's town. I don't know anyone who lives there anymore.
I actually connected with some of the kids from my old high school crowd. That was a lot of fun. It was sweet because the affection is still there, the sincere good will and best wishes, but now from a bunch of old-timers experienced at life. We've reconnected and I'm sure we'll be friends for the rest of our lives. Friendship is work. Facebook makes it easy. That's the beauty of it, the simplicity. Not everyone likes it or even has an interest in it but if you do, it's great. There's a few people, people I see everyday, who email me but have never accepted being friends. I really think they just don't know what space to click. You can lead a horse to water....
I've found that some people tell you a little more than you want to hear. They're acquaintances really. People I've met one way or the other, not really close. I don't mind people promoting their business interests but they get worse than a TV ad campaign. It's not that I'm not interested in them but seeing six to ten messages a day can be a bit much. I've canceled some people who I felt were intrusive. It wasn't any old friends though. They could never be too intrusive.
Comments