Heidi Aphrodite

Yes, I know the world is full of these, but I need to write this down, I think.

I joined Facebook about 5 years ago because of some guy I was more or less dating.  I didn’t have a degree or anything (this was back in the day when it was just a college networking site and I didn’t have a college to network to) but I joined in a limited way and thought no more of it for a couple of years.  In the meantime, I joined MySpace because of my fiance at the time.  It was fun to hunt people down and stay in touch in a different way and I found some old friends I hadn’t seen in years but always wondered about.

After my engagement was called off, I stayed on MySpace but Facebook was changing; I got an email that Tiffany had requested to add me as a friend on Facebook and I thought, “why not?  I like Tiffany a lot.  Let’s check this out!”  I updated my profile, explored all the fun features, and went a little nuts.  Who didn’t, really?  It was FACEBOOK.  And it was AWESOME.  I found so many people I hadn’t seen in more than 10 years.  I enjoyed catching up and learning about their lives.  I delighted in finding out who had kids and how many.  The only drawback was that my ex kept trying to add me as a friend, using an email account I didn’t even want to use anymore.  I wanted nothing to do with him, so I eventually made myself unsearchable, maximized my privacy settings, and deleted that email account.

Since then, I’ve trawled my high school network, looking for the people who helped me in untold ways through that difficult senior year.  There were so many, and I just wanted to have some kind of a connection to them again.  We’d all grown up so well.  We’d all moved on and up.  We’d all discovered hard truths and managed to get through them more or less intact.  It was comforting.  It was inspiring.  It was so much fun to see how people had changed and what their children looked like and how their lives had been.  I loved it.  I still do.  I wish I could hug each of them in person and tell them what they mean to me–and I’m not even being the tiniest bit facetious.  If I had them all in one big room, I would be so happy!

It wasn’t just high school friends I found.  It was people from junior high and elementary school.  People from the local theatre scene.  People from previous wards.  People from college classes.  So many people who are important to me in some way, no matter how small it is.  Some of them are weird, yeah.  Some of them I haven’t talked to for a while.  But ALL of them had an impact on my life and I wanted to remember that.  Because of that attitude, I tend to “friend” most people who ask, even if I don’t recall their faces right away.  The few I haven’t “friended” are those I haven’t even met or around whom I am uncomfortable.  I’m sure, as a part of varied and large circles, I’ll meet and like those I haven’t met in person eventually.  That’s not a big deal to me.  The ones I’m uncomfortable around are just out of luck, really.  It’s not a cruel mindset that made that decision, it’s the protective part of me.  There are just some things some people don’t get to know about me, and I’m ok with that.  It’s all part of the Facebook community, I suppose.

This is why I won’t “unfriend” someone unless he or she seriously offends me or creeps me out.  I figure they asked to be in my general circle for a reason–whether it’s a networking thing or because they really do like me–and I don’t want anyone’s feelings to be inadvertently hurt.  I have various categories, from family to theatre connections, to keep everyone straight.  It works for me.  I like knowing that I can ask a question and get it answered.  I like knowing that if someone is in trouble I can help in a small way, even if it’s just by sending an email.  I like reading people’s blogs to see what life is like for them.  I may not always comment, or I may comment too much, but I do read them.

All of this is a lead-in to telling you that it hurts a little when someone I want to stay in contact with decides they don’t want to stay in contact with me.  I missed someone today, and tried to find her on Facebook to see how her lovely little family was doing, but she’d removed me from her friends list and it hurt.  It’s her choice, sure.  People can do what they want.  But, right now, it feels like we’re back in high school and she’s suddenly stopped talking to me for reasons I can’t understand.  It brings back a lot of the Year From Hell, honestly, and I’m just working through the small hurt to find the peace that inevitably comes at the end.  I hope she’s doing well.  Sometimes, becoming less of a public entity is a very good thing.  If I had kids, I’d probably have two Facebook profiles–one for my family and close friends, and one for everyone else.  I might feel safer that way.  On the other hand, so many people know me anyway that it’s almost not worth it.

I hope I’ve done nothing to offend.  I hope that other people’s choices didn’t give her a negative opinion of me.  I hope that all is well with her.

Most of all, I hope that when I see her again, I’ll be able to be glad and cheerful and love her (or the memory of her) all the same.  I hope she will, too.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 at 6:42 pm and is filed under Confessions, Musings, Thoughtful me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.