The Thing About Facebook

Not feeling the all-consuming desire to maintain an online presence that so many possess (as best evidenced by my rather ... [cough] lengthy absences from the blogosphere) , I don't generally feel any particular need to engage in online social networks of any kind. In fact, certain aspects of those networks -- and of all online presence in general -- leave me feeling decidedly creeped out. For that reason, I flatly refused to join Facebook for a long time. But earlier this year, I found that the following pattern had begun to develop in my conversations with friends who live as nearby as the Upper West Side and as far away as New Zealand :

Me: It's so good to talk with you! It's been ages. How are you?
Friend: I'm great. I've started dating super-amazing, fabulous person/gotten a new dog/bought a new house/dyed my hair green.
Me: Really? That's terrific! Do you have any pictures?
Friend: Of course. I posted them on Facebook. You HAVE to see them.
Me: I don't have a Facebook account. Will you email them to me?
Friend: [several seconds of silence] Uh... I don't know if I'll really have time... e-mail is such a hassle, you know? And what do you MEAN, you don't have a Facebook account??

Now, I didn't think much of it the first couple of times I had this conversation, but by the fifth or sixth time, I began to waver a bit on my hard-and-fast "no social networks" rule. So when a friend in England then told me that the only way I was going to get to see pictures of his young son was if I created a Facebook account (is there a name for this type of blackmail?), I caved. (His son is adorable, of course.) I felt great about my decision all afternoon. After all, this was just another way of connecting with my friends and family. What could be bad about that?

A few hours later, it all came back to me, in the form of a conversation with a New Friend as we walked across town to the East Side.

NF: You'll never guess who called me last night. It was so weird.
Me: Who?
NF: Mutual Acquaintance.
Me: He called you at home? That is weird. What for?
NF: Well, you know that his wife is head of HR at the company she works for? She received a resume that looked interesting, and she googled Applicant's name to see what the internet had to say about her. Of course, Applicant's Facebook page came up, and Wife noticed that I was listed as one of Applicant's friends. She knew that her husband knew me, so she asked him to call me and ask whether I would recommend Applicant for the job.
Me: So you got a call from MA at the request of his wife, whom you have never met, in order to solicit your opinion on the character of someone who blindly sent a resume to Wife in consideration for a job, and the only reason Wife even knew that you were acquainted with Applicant was because you were listed on her Facebook page?
NF: Yep. But it got a little awkward because I didn't really even know Applicant very well. I'd just met her at a party a week before and we had spent an hour or two chatting at the bar. There wasn't much I could tell MA that wouldn't make Applicant sound a little bit like a drunk... not entirely sure that she isn't a drunk... oh, well. I did the best I could. But it was weird.
Me: Yeah, weird... [wondering furiously how anyone could consider Facebook innocuous and mentally cursing every friend who played a part in leading me into that sticky web]

Since then, I have felt a deep appreciation for my participation in this Social Networking Phenomenon.
- Hey look, acquaintance in Boston just had a baby. Did I even know she was pregnant??
- Ooh, friend in Israel just started a new job.
- Young cousin still hasn't managed to choose a date for the prom. Tsk, tsk!

It's a warm feeling to be able to log into my account and in one fell swoop, get the down-low on several dozen friends/acquaintances/family members I'm not in constant communication with. Of course, that warm feeling is always accompanied by a concurrent feeling of guilt over not communicating directly with these people, either via phone or e-mail. (How did I not know she was pregnant?? It's been nine months -- it's not like there hasn't been time to find out!) Then sense kicks in and I remember that in our modern age of ever-expanding social circles, we know far too many people to keep in touch with everyone all the time. Our parents used to write Holiday Cards once a year as a form of annual catch-up, and that was often the only contact people had from one year to the next. Now, it's online social networking, which, despite its drawbacks, at least provides consistent, ongoing real-time updates. This is a Good Thing (though I still decry the loss of more personal -- and more meaningful -- forms of contact).

Then there's that grey area consisting of "Friends" who aren't really friends. Casual acquaintances, former classmates, friends of friends, colleagues. People we've met once or twice and never thought about since. People we used to date. Inevitably, at least some of these people end up on our Facebook pages. In one sense, it's kind of nice to see how things are going for former high school classmates. Then again, these are people I have not seen or spoken with since the day we graduated over ten years ago. Is it not a tiny bit strange that I know which radio station FHSC is listening to on her drive to work? Seems odd to me. Not harmful; just odd, and I can deal with odd. What I have a hard time dealing with is the knowledge that FHSC will be able to read whatever is posted on my pages. Of course, there is nothing overtly personal on there. But that's not the point. While I make no secret of which movies I've seen in the last month, it strikes me as a bit creepy that someone in Texas I haven't seen since I was seventeen is privy to that list. Again, not harmful, but still creepy.

Hence, my hesitance to make more than the most minor of forays into the online world. My worst anxieties about maintaining a blog were realized about a year and a half ago, when I met a Random Person from somewhere out west. During our conversation, he mentioned that he had a blog and promised to send me the URL, in case I was interested. I replied that I also had a blog, but rarely wrote in it. He asked me to send him a link, anyway, which I did. His response was immediate, and stunning:

RP: This is YOU?? No way! I started reading your blog months ago, and I love it!
Me: Umm... excuse me?
RP: I can't even believe this. You know, you should post a picture on your blog. Then I would have known immediately it was you.
Me: Umm... excuse me?
RP: This is so cool!
Me: Umm... uh... WHAT??????? Hardly anyone even knows I have a blog, let alone reads it!
RP: Really? So-and-so has a link to your blog on their webpage, and I clicked on it one day just to see what it was. Been reading your blog ever since.
Me: Really? Huh. Well... uh... that's... uh... nice. [weak smile] Small world, huh?

And there it was. I had always known, in theory, that random people would likely stumble onto this page from time to time. After all, Blogger has its own network. And this page is linked to other people's blogs/websites. But to be faced with the grinning acknowledgement of a stranger who lives 2,000 miles away, whom I met only by chance and whom I would likely never see again, abruptly twisted that theoretical knowledge into a shocking reality. Random people really do read my blog. And they won't always remain random.

Compared to this, maybe Facebook isn't so bad. At least the people who see my profile aren't random. I might not know them well, but I do know who they are. That's something, right?