I have been thinking about it for a while now and have come to the conclusion that Facebook = one of the best things ever.
This afternoon I had lunch with a friend of mine from junior high band. She lives in Canada with her husband. We haven’t spoken for 15 years. We found each other on Facebook, she happened to be coming to Seattle on vacation and voila, there I was in a gelato shop downtown with my whiny kids, telling junior high band stories.
For some reason my kids thought the stories were boring and for some reason Laylee resented being toted all over town with an ear infection. After 10 days of home-bound sickness, 3 doctor’s visits and the start of a second round of antibiotics, I decided that we just had to all become portable again. Not sure it was the wisest decision but it was so good to see my friend again and meet her awesome husband.
There are people you were sure would do great things with their lives and it’s so much fun to find out that they actually did. It’s especially fun when your 3-year-old son falls in love with your friend’s husband and refuses to let go of his hand while your normally gregarious daughter spends the whole time you’re together scowling and refusing to talk to anyone unless it’s to tell them how boring they are.
On Sunday I found myself talking on the phone with one of my best friends from high school who I hadn’t heard from in years. Where did I find out he was still alive? That’s right. Facebook.
I’ve also used it to hook up with friends from film school, 6th grade frenemies who have miraculously turned into unbeastly adult-type people who will talk to me now even if I don’t have an ESPRIT school bag, and old coworkers.
It’s like an online matchmaking service for your past, a high school reunion without the awkward moments, bad dancing or drunkishness.
What’s the most unlikely relationship you’ve resurrected on Facebook?
My sister discovered Facebook recently. She’s going through a divorce (all his fault, naturally), and I think for her it’s going to be an important part of restarting her social life as a single person. Helps that she still lives near where she went to high school, as do a lot of her (former) friends.
I’ve noticed that some of the people who spend a lot of time on there (simply because they have/make the time?) ARE single: these beautiful, talented, smart women from my graduating class who don’t have families of their own (yet). The women who have kids seem to spend more time on their own blogs (if they spend time online at all). I wonder if there’s any way to explore this statistically, or if it even matters.
I think any way to connect with others — old or new friends, online or in-person — is great.
To be honest, the level of contact that I have with high school friends on Facebook is the perfect level of contact. They are people I had lost touch with, and it’s great to be in touch with them again–to see little updates on where they are or what they are doing, to see pictures of their little ones and their travels, to play online games of Scrabble with them.
And yet it’s not a relationship where you feel obligated to call each other on the phone a certain number of times, or have awkward conversations where you feel like you ought to apologize for not being better about keeping in touch, or really make any demands on each other at all. If it’s someone you really enjoyed, you can make the extra effort to get in closer contact; if it’s someone you weren’t close to back in high school or college, being a casual Facebook friend is enough and you don’t have to seek out more. I’ve only been on there for a few months but I’m kind of hooked.
I signed up not too long ago and I couldn’t find a SINGLE person I knew from high school OR my YSA ward on Facebook. I was so bummed. My friends are apparently all techno-phobes.
YES…I agree with you about Facebook. I have found so many people. Some of which I don’t want to get in contact with! 🙂 But it’s great. Found a cousin the other day I haven’t spoken to in many, many years..so that was very cool!
My best friend from high school pestered me into joining and we reacquainted with each other and many of our high school classmates. It turns out that she and I have very similar lives, now, in some ways. She is married to a Jewish Rabbi and I am married to a Mormon bishop. We did a little comparative study of it and posted it on my website for an everyday biography. It is fun when out of the blue someone “friends” me whom I haven’t seen for nearly 20 years.
I am a big fan of Facebook.
Not long ago I found an old friend from school–we’d been best friends in middle school, then had a falling out, then become friendly again in high school.
I found her on Facebook last year–five years after high school–and learned that she had left her first college, joined the LDS Church, and moved to Utah! We began trading emails about our lives and all the new things we’ve found in life since high school. She seems happier than I’ve ever seen her. She just got married and is having a kid in September! I mean, whoa! I am so happy to be in touch with her again
Don’t you LOVE them? I love them. I”m gald you got to eat ice cream with them and play. I with I could have come too. Although they did feed me a delicious dinner when I visited the parents this summer. Yeah for reconnections.
I’ve blogged about my love for Facebook before, so wont bore you with the details. But I still love it. My most unusual reconnections are probably several girls that I went to kindergarten with and havent seen since. Given that I’m 31, that puts kindergarten at 25 years ago, so it’s kind of funny.
I love it also! I have just become a Facebook user in the past few weeks. I haven’t found too many people from my past, but I use to keep in touch with present friends.
It can totally be a time waster though! It’s addictive.
In high school, I did a study abroad in Oxford, England for a month and became really good friends with a girl named Lauren from Ohio (I am from Virginia). I went to visit her and we then lost contact when we went away to college (mainly because she was Jewish and I went all “crazy Christian” on her, not being able to handle my testimony at the time). Anyway, I recently was found by my friend Joel, who was my homecoming date my senior year. Guess who he’s married to? Yup, Lauren. That’s just nuts!
I just got on Facebook last week, after my hubby had been bugging me for months to go on. Now he is getting worried that I will get more friends than he has, it’s always a competition with guys.
I found a good friend from high school who I haven’t talked to in ten years. The last time I talked to him was the day I called to tell him I was engaged. He cried. I guess there were some unresolved feelings there! But now he is engaged and has a baby daughter. Facebook has been fun!
One of my BYU roommates had a missionary and then got married while he was gone (surprise, suprise) and when he got home adn joined facebook, both me and another roommate added him as friends. And he rejected us BOTH! and then I tried again and he rejected him AGAIN! And I met him before the roommate started dating him. Hilariously awkward.
Ok, I joined. I’m such a lemming.
I’m so glad. You will love it.
Okay – can I admit how unhip I am? How I pretty much live online and yet I am not on Facebook? Can I really tell everyone what a loser I am???
Well – I guess I just did. Yes – it is true – I am one of the only humans alive not on Facebook. But really – I MEAN to be. I am just so ridiculously busy. I don’t get enough time to visit my dear blogging buddies nor answer all my email. I figured if I added facebook I would either explode, or I would never ever shut off my computer. I just couldn’t take the pressure of more online commitments. So I didn’t join. And I regret it. Cause I am missing out on so much… so I hear.
So – you know what – you may have just pushed me over the edge. I might just do it…
I’ve reconnected with a casual friend from high school and we have HUNG OUT.
I’m in your mother’s generation, so friend’s my age are slowly coming on board to Facebook. I initially joined because I knew my son in college spent a lot of time there and I found it was a great way to “keep in touch” (some people might call it spying) with him. I enjoy being friends with my nieces and nephews and younger friends (like you). It makes me feel really “hip,” (though using that word probably proves how un-hip I am). I don’t spend a lot of time on it, however. I’d love to connect with a friend from my long-ago past.
hah! That is SO cool! 🙂