Webupon

I was lured onto Facebook by a friend of mine, who resides in a different state, as a means of casual communication between us.  It seemed like a good idea at the time.  It wasn’t two days before I was bombarded with friend requests from people I barely spoke to in high school, let alone in the last fifteen years.  I have no idea why, but I felt an obligation to accept their friend requests, despite the fact that (even though this sounds a bit cold, I am sure it works the other way too) I really don’t care what they are doing these days.  If I did care, I probably would have contacted them sometime within the last fifteen years.  Again, I am sure that they could probably care less about me either, it is a superficial and voyeuristic friendship borne out of boredom on a day when they have nothing better to do but set up a Facebook account and look up people they remember from high school. 

This Facebook “friendship” seems to follow one of these paths; First, it will be someone that you have not thought about in many years that for some reason or another, has thought to make a friend request to you at 2:38 am(these are my favorite, but they are kinda creepy). Second, it will be a girl/guy that you have dated many years ago, and again haven’t thought of since, but the thought of maybe hooking up at the next reunion is on the mind until you see their profile picture, and/or wedding ring and twelve kids.  Third, the person whom you have no idea who it is.  I always chalk it up to the fact that I have a very common first and last name until I see that I must have obviously went to school with this person.  I happened to grow up in a smaller town with a class size of about 250.  Most students were k-12 and therefore I pretty much knew everybody, so these “friends” really throw me off. Then there are the “residual friends”, the viral results of making other friends.  These people will probably never talk to you, and again, couldn’t give a rat’s ass about you.  Yet, they are compelled to make you their Facebook “friend”, thereby permitting you access to view pictures, personal information, contact information, etc.  I find it very odd that someone whom you wouldn’t give the time of day, now can meddle into intimate moments in your life(unless you are like me and keep the pics/info to a minimum).  I actually do have a few friends on Facebook that I do still talk to, but we tend to correspond via email, call each other, or visit.

Why do you continue to keep an active account on Facebook you ask?  I guess for the same reason I feel the need to accept friend requests.  I have this feeling of neutrality towards these people and the whole social networking trend, so for some strange reason I find myself somewhat unwillingly engaging in it.  Between Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, perhaps I have dug myself into a mood update/tweet style hell.  Or maybe I am helping to usher in a new style of social hypocrisy.