I thought of this, but couldn’t figure out where to fit it into the previous multi-post Facebook diatribe, but another thing that I personally really like Facebook for is vaguely keeping up with people from my past.
Explanation: My argument for not really giving a shit about my high school reunion was always that for the people who I really cared about, I would continue to stay in touch with anyways … and for the most part this has remained more or less true. On the other hand, the main reason to go to a reunion isn’t to catch up with your best friends, but to see how everyone else managed to turn out – who had kids, who’s living where, who’s doing what, and so forth…
I like Facebook for this reason because I can be friends with someone and see random updates from their life without actually having to get really invested to hear the entire story, and that might sound kind of crude, but face it, it’s realistic because think of how many of your Facebook friends you’ve actually talked to on the phone or in person recently. For me, it’s almost none because sometimes I can barely find the time to call my closest of friends, so to keep up with a few dozen people that I went to school with or the guys I worked with at summer camp, for example, would just require way too much phone time and frankly, between my scheduling and theirs, it would probably never happen.
But nonetheless, I’ve been able to reconnect, at least somewhat, with a lot of those people via Facebook because even if I still never really talk to them, at least now I know that Dave married Jenna and is living in Texas with their kids or that Terry lives out on the west coast and still plays in a band, and so on. Basically, Facebook has taken the place of the reunion for me, except that it’s updated all of the time and probably gives me a lot more information than I would ever get from a couple of dozen five minute conversations once every ten years. We may not be as close of friends anymore, but I’m still curious about what’s going on in their lives from time to time, and for me, Facebook fulfills that need very well.
The only thing that it doesn’t give me is the dirt about the people who I didn’t like – who knocked up who and what kinds of crappy jobs that they’re doing now – but that’s just because I refuse to friend people who I truly hated growing up. As much as I’d love to confirm that the guy who used to shove me into my locker every day freshmen year is now shoveling shit somewhere, friend just doesn’t seem like the appropriate word!
Maybe nosy acquaintance who really wants to gloat, but certainly not friend…