I am going to pull out that warm cozy chestnut of a line again, "in the old days...." you would only see your high school friends once every decade, if you went to the reunion. That's if you wanted to go or had any inclination to see how everyone turned out.
Now you can find them all on Facebook and really go to town and get into each other's lives.
Hey I Am Writing On Your Wall
"Wow, you have a beautiful family...so many...."
"Is that really your hair?"
"Is that legal?"
"Yes, I got a discount coupon for the augmentation, aren't they great?!"
"He was my ex-husband's brother-in-law's business partner."
"Yeah, ___ went AWOL and left me with the dogs."
"No I stopped doing that once I found out how much it was costing me..."
"Remember when we took your dad's car and..."
Didn't Need To Know That...
Not only can you see each other's friends, you can check out the photo albums of family vacations all the way to photos of stuff you really didn't want to see or have the back story on. Facebook has phased out the need for reunions where we anticipated the "what are they doing now" moments - now we can select who we want to be back in contact with and really begin to have adult conversations, with the years passed and the immaturity of high school angst far behind, we can now converse as peers.
Reconnecting is also about letting go, letting go of what we held onto, what really doesn't matter anymore. We can pursue a deeper relationship or we can just look into each other's lives and find that we all have made our own way and that the past is just a stepping stone amongst hundreds of stones that have lead us to where we are now.
Image: Ophelia Chong / Tunnel 3rd Street
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>"Is that really your hair?"Reconnecting is also about letting go, letting go of what we held onto, what really doesn't matter anymore.<
This is a great point. I am big and proud grudge holder - my Book of Grudges has entries in it going back decades! - but very often these are one-sided blood feuds where the other person doesn't know that I have it in for them and tries to friend me. What to do? Hold on and let them know I have a bottle of champagne cooling with their name on it, waiting for the day some calamity befalls them? Or do I just friend them and let it go?
Facebook for adults is High School 2.0. I'm still having fun with it.
I'm hearing from people I knew 40 years ago. Not dog-years either. What's truly interesting is how intact the person you knew as a child is. Yes, weight, hair, and all that come or go.
There are people you knew in a different context, and they were annoying. They resurface in another context, and they're still annoying.
Cheer up! They probably didn't much like you either. Being un-friended is the snap in the elastic Facebook definition of "friend". Like they were going to have categories of friend, buddy, smoking-buddy, sit-next-to-you-on-the-bus-by-default buddy, we-got-drunk-and-got-inappropriate buddy, annoyance, or outright enemy.
All the usual societal gravitational rules still apply. That's why my profile has my birthday as 1912. We'll get that one out of the way right from the 'git.
Dear Mr. Trail Safety,
You are right, "friend" online is a very different animal offline. I have friends on FB that I have know for years and it's a great way to keep up with each other, and on the other hand I have new "old" friends that have surfaced and we are learning about each other on a different level than in the past. We find out we don't have much in common, or too much.
Thanks for visiting and commenting, it's always appreciated. :O) ophelia
Dear KCET Gary,
I say let go, but only after you've seen their receding hairline. :O) ophelia
It's kind of sad to think that we don't need real reunions anymore, where you show up not having any idea who you'll run into and what they're doing now. Facebook, et al, has taken the element of surprise out of so many moments, including the anticipation of seeing someone you haven't seen in 20 years! I'm going to my 30 this year, so this post has particular resonance..thanks Ophelia.
I divide the people I went to school with into two buckets - googleable and non-googleable. Some folks leave fairly legible digital traces, others have disappeared altogether. The pile non-googleable's got significantly smaller a 4 or 5 months ago, though, when my entire grammar school materialized on Facebook all at once.
Dear Erin,
I still hold reunions dear to my heart, but there is a whole generation that will never loose touch. And will not have that "what are they doing now" curiosity we have. Which is better? The surprise or the continuous connection? Thanks Erin for commenting. :O) ophelia