I should really learn to stop going to Starbucks after noon, because caffeine has an affect on me that it didn't used to have....it makes me lie in bed thinking about stuff instead of sleeping.
So here I am, all ready to enter sleep bliss, and a thought comes into my head that has been bothering me since my trip back home this summer. "X" has defriended me. Not only did she defriend me, but her mom, and daughter too. Now don't get me wrong - I am not that friggin shallow to be devastated by a Facebook defriending, but it has made me reflect on my underlying unfriendly nature. And make me get out of bed to write it down, so I don't lose the thought. And also there is that irritating character flaw of mine - the everlasting need to defend myself. If not only just to write it down and somehow feel it is settling.
It started with me being road hard from a very long drive from Sacramento to Sandpoint, Idaho to see mom & dad. Not to see anyone else (except maybe Debbie).
We got into town, and here I am walking into Walmart looking and feeling like I just walked off the set of Deliverance. I thought to myself - this is Sandpoint, Smallsville, USA. Lord help me if I see anyone I know. And I jinxed it from right there. Sure enough, strolling through I hear my name. OH SHIT, I think to myself, because I am in my mode of not being social, and my town is just not the place to be let loose in if you are in that frame of mind.
It is one of my best friends from high school - with her mom, also an old friend. Now I use the word "friend" lightly, because but-for Facebook, I would not know these people. It has been 28+ years since I graduated from Sandpoint Senior High, and up until about a year ago, I had not spoken to ANYONE from high school, aside from the stragglers coming back through town on College visits when I was bar tending at Kamloops. College wasn't even a word in my vocabulary at that time.
Enter the Facebook Craze many, many years later. When it first came out and was still cool. I had no discretion, and was eager to connect up with long lost acquaintances. But any connection was really only through the ether, not real. I didn't really know the people I was reconnecting with, and it somehow felt empty. It felt like it always did - like I was an outsider looking into other people's lives. Like watching a movie.
It really hit me one summer on a road trip home with my husband, and I was frantically updating my status on FB like it was the most important thing ever. Like I was a CNN Correspondent or something. Like anyone really cared. And ironically, my closest friends were not even Facebooker's. Because of some insight someone gave me, I realized that I had let anyone and everyone into our bubble of protected bliss. Looking to see who "liked" where I was or what I was doing. Almost like an obsession to be noticed for doing something cool, and accepted for it.
I came back home after the trip and the realization and did a mass "defriending" of people I had absolutely no intention of actually catching up with. it was strange to do that, but it also felt right.
So. The crazy and hypocritical thing is that I got bummed when I realized X, and her whole family had defriended me. It took me awhile to notice. I can't pin down the actual time it happened because FB doesn't alert you to defriending actions, only friending ones. But one day I realized X wasn't liking my stupid shit comments anymore. And she was one of the few that actually did. So then I thought to myself, what happened to X? Maybe she got the crazy FB virus bug that messes up your whole computer and you have to deactivate your account for awhile. But I am thinking not.
But here's the gig. Anyone that knows me knows two things about me: 1) I am with you when I am with you, but when I am gone or you are I move on; and 2) I am not that good of a friend. Probably just restating #1. It is no surprise to me that I can count my close friends on one hand. I had delusions of grandeur that Facebook might be the friend maker I never have been. But it is not that, because I am not that. For most of my adult life I have travelled and never stayed in any one place long enough to get settled in and actually make friends. This I guess is changing now that I have been in the same town now for 11 years. Maybe it is time to finally settle in.
But even then I will still be what I have always been and felt - an awkward feeling onlooker to other people going about a normal life of what FB epitomizes. And for that reason, I will stay on FB. Because despite not knowing too many people intimately, I do enjoy seeing others living life and keeping up with them. I "like" it. And many of the people I have reconnected with - if only on Facebook - are leading beautiful and amazing lives. And I am too. Just maybe in a different way.
So if I run into you and seem strange - please don't take it personal. It is not you, it's me.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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