Internet III: The Facecrackening

I promise this will be the last post about Facebook today.

It's not like I haven't been totally aware of Facebook all this time. I remember when it was just leaving its Harvard-only stage, and some column somewhere proposed that Facebook's clean look and use of real names might eventually make it more popular than Myspace.

And like I said last month, I signed up in 2007. But, another social network? I have a bookmark file full of them. (I just logged into Orkut for the first time in two years. Why does Brazil hate us? Or love us very, very much?) And I've already put my friends through too many invitations over the past 14 years.

(Fourteen years?! Gah!)

BUT NOBODY TOLD ME ABOUT THE APPLICATIONS.

The games! The games! I don't mean like Yahoo games, with the upsetting Java loading screens and emphasis on synchronous interaction. Nobody told me that I could send virtual crap to people and raise crops and kill dragons and pseudo-twitter and make travel maps and learn languages and breed hamsters.

And at the same time, I can keep all of the interaction short and sweet. I can let people know I like them and think about them without sitting down to compose Proper Emails or trying to hold a chat session when I'm in six other windows while scrounging around the kitchen and washing my hair and packing up the new humidifier because, by the way, it sucks. I get to return that tomorrow, on the usual minimal sleep. Wish their customer service luck.

(And I'm a total liar because I asked Mike to pack it up while I cleaned the ionic whatsicallit, which was caked with white dust. That's what's supposed to happen, yes, but not over 48 hours. And the white dust is supposed to be there because the cleaner is working, not because the humidifier is dumping white dust over everything in the apartment. Computers, camera lenses, the seed dishes of innocent hamhams. I prefer to get my calcium supplements through melted cheese, okay? And Customer Service better not tell me to use distilled water. The manual says the demineralization cartridge, included, is for people who choose not to use distilled water. I guess this works for people whose tap water is drinkable or something crazy like that. I think I'd rather just turn to dried out leather than pay for a two-jugs-a-day distilled water habit, plus haul it all upstairs and store it... where?)

(This is depressing, though, because the thing did cool AND warm mist, and the mist made me feel like I was on a dark ride.)

(I suppose I could get the same effect with a shard of dry ice and a bottle of Jergens.)

(Okay, I just reread that last sentence, and I can see how it would sound very, er, wrong. But I don't want to fix it, because using the name brand "Jergens" perfectly evokes a well-known brand of moisturizer that isn't too girly. I'm not sure I've ever actually owned any Jergens, but you know me - I'm not really up on hydration products. So if I've heard of it... But I feel I should point out that if you think I mean something else, I don't. Except, if you don't know what else I could mean, maybe now you're curious and unsatisfied and this has all backfired, and I'm so sorry. As sorry as I was yesterday when trying to buy bulk barley, and wow the plastic bag was hard to open, and then I dumped in, like, a pound of barley and watched it fall through the "open" bag and straight through the other end. Because sometimes "open" means "ripped." I hate produce/bulk bags. I wonder if there's a Facebook group for that?)

Oh yeah, back to Facebook, or "Facecrack" as I now call it, hence the title of this post. (The "Internet III" part refers to how, since becoming active on FB, I feel like I've discovered a whole new Internet that stands on its own. If you're wondering about "Internet II," that's another post for another day, maybe even another person.)

Mike was I was but a fortnight ago, with no interest in signing up. Aren't our online lives pretty full already? But, I needed trees. For my farm. And fish. For my cove. And plants. For my patch. And peels. For my meals. Michael! Log in! I need more crap for my apps!

(See, many of the games involve currency and objects, and you can get more of both if your friends are involved.)

So, just like the way Mike completely bagged and boxed the humidifier, found the manual I spilled soda on, and hauled the whole thing to the car then looked in the glove compartment (aka Mobile Clutter Drawer) for the receipt, all of this at midnight AFTER taking some sleep meds, Mike gamely did my bidding.

And because I am a shrew, I used this time to nag him with the "you should get X on here" speeches. Then, because I'm a nosy shrew, I started looking for X myself. Also Y and Z. When I found one, I'd look at their friend lists. "Do you know A? What about B?"

And before you could say "guy who sat in front of me in math class and once borrowed my pencil," Mike was dancing under the Add Friend disco ball.

So I just ignored him when he said he wasn't into the apps.

Today he beat my Word Challenge score.

I have not been as gutsy in my friending. Mike, he's a straightforward guy. No one will ever wonder where they stand with Mike. (A very awesome thing.) If you were ever a regular part of his life, even if it was 20 years ago and on the periphery on a good day, he'll add you as a friend. He defines a Facebook friend very loosely. If you're inoffensive with a speck of potential, you're in.

Me, I don't like being too forward. I'd like to use the same definition of "friend," but I'm a little older. I get caught up on the word. I don't want to presume or intrude.

What if you're the kind of person who, while you like me and could even call me a friend, you only want to see status updates from close friends and family? Adding me would interfere with that. I'm cool with this, but you'll never know, so you're there making Awkw*rd Turtle hand gestures and feeling bad for not wanting to click "Accept."

What if you know me, and we had some good times in large groups, but we never took it further and maybe you don't know my last name? What if we sat next to each other for a semester and chatted daily, and of course we'd spend five minutes catching up if meeting on the street, but we didn't bother to stay in touch at the time? But maybe we would have stayed in touch if we'd had something has low-pressure as Facebook back then?

(Who knew, 14 years ago, that we'd someday be lumping email in with other forms of "demanding" communication?)

What if we were friends, definitely, but at some point drifted apart? What if you feel like I didn't put enough effort into instant messaging or emails or phone calls at the time, even though a real friend would know I am hopeless with all three. And with face-to-face. Really, I'm just hopeless, still sending all of my goodwill via telepathy, which is also spelled l-a-z-i-n-e-s-s. Facebook could change that! But, dare I put in a "Friend" request? Maybe you hold a little grudge. Maybe I'm more horrible than I realize, and it wasn't just time and distance...

So, you see, there is too much introspection and it's all best avoided. (I could work through my neuroses and dated, half-assed attempts at manners, but then who would eat the chocolate?) And I haven't even gotten into the "I want to send you a friend request, but I worry that parts of my life will make you uncomfortable" zone. Or the "well, if you haven't added me already, maybe that means I should back off" issue, and never mind that my account sat there for 18 months while people could've said the same of me.

It's all wayyyyyy too much thinking about what other people think, which is wayyyy too much of a junior high rerun.

Except! I did just reconnect with a junior high friend, and that's pretty cool. (Thank god she added me first. With all of the above anxieties, there's no way I'm even considering testing people's memories from those days.)

Speaking of memories, Facebook has made me feel unexpectedly old. There are just far too many people whose last names I can't remember, or I know they got married but - dang - what was his name? Okay, I know those people aren't friends, but wouldn't it be fun to say hi again?

(And yet, even though I remember the last name of the girl who shared my bunk at Girl Scout camp that one summer, I know there are limits to even Facebook's casual definition of friendship.)

And THEN, yesterday, I got my first "friend of a friend" request on Facebook. There I was, at Whole Foods, standing very far away from the Barley Incident, and my phone buzzed. "XYZ wants to be your friend." Who? But then I figured it out, accepted, and we've discovered a fabulous mutual Herman's Hermits appreciation. So now I have a new friend. Or "friend." Whatever! It's magic! And complicated! (But not in the Facebook sense of "it's complicated." See, I know all the lingo now.)

I forget what else I was going to say, but it's time to run my Facecrack app traps. Again. Oh, and that not going to work early thing? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, the alarm clock's going to ring in 85 minutes anyway...

Comments

[Heather in Pa]

oh, yeah. I knew it would happen.

:)