I joined Facebook a few months ago, when I realized I’d be in the market for a job and maybe it’d be a good idea to be reachable, if anyone cared to look. (I had a thing against LinkedIn that I got over once I found out that headhunters use it.)
Facebook made me very uneasy at first. I had been a semi-public figure in my old job, something I wasn’t always comfortable with, and the idea of sharing personal information widely—without getting paid for it—didn’t really appeal. I posted some photos of my dog and asked a few friends to be my “friend,” so I wouldn’t look too pathetic. (I’m going to have to use quotation marks to differentiate between Facebook and reality.)
Then people who I honestly wouldn’t have considered friends started asking me to be their “friend,” and I didn’t know what to do. I literally stayed awake at night feeling terrible for ignoring them. (I was leaving them in limbo, not actively clicking “ignore.”) Some were classmates who I barely remembered, if at all. Some were people I’d met years ago through various jobs. Some were even readers of the magazine I’d recently worked at. I was flattered to be asked, but in my mind, friends are people you’d trust secrets with, or lean on in hard times.
But what are “friends”? I still don’t know, but I came up with a rule: I’d be anybody’s “friend” as long as we’d met face-to-face. It’s very old-persony of me to have this rule, I see that, but I felt much more at ease. The jury is still out on how it makes other people feel.
I began to enjoy Facebook. I love the status updates, as I’ve written about here. I like seeing photos of old friends who live elsewhere, and it’s a hoot to catch a glimpse of their spouses, kids, and pets. And it’s a handy way to get the word out when I post something on this blog.
It’s not all puppy pix and SuperPokes, though. There have been times when Facebook has shined too bright a light on some of my friendships. Like many people when they first sign up, I got in touch with an ex-boyfriend from, oh, 15 years ago, and we had a pleasant enough back-and-forth—until he abruptly dropped it. (I took some pride in the fact that I never asked to be his friend.) I was also reminded of more than one friendship that has fizzled out: We’re not friends anymore, as I assume we both know, but now we’re “friends.” What Facebook does, a little cruelly, is remind me every time he updates his status that I’m no longer an important part of his life; quite the opposite. (I wrote that with a specific person in mind, but now I worry that others might think I’m talking about them. Super.) Relationships don’t just fade away anymore. If you want to end it, you have to cut the cord.
I cut the cord today.
Yesterday, I was surprised to see a status update from a high-school friend. We were never close, but it was disappointing to see that she was a vocal proponent of California’s anti-gay Proposition 8. She directed people to her blog if they wanted the reasons why. I read the blog, but it was a lot of “I think” and “In my opinion,” phrases that don’t tend to lead to rational discussion. I posted a comment on her status remarking that what for her was an abstract issue was a personal one for me; being able to get married would make my life easier now that I’m not working. (More on that here.) We had a fairly polite back-and-forth, some other friends jumped in—including someone else from high school who has gone batshit insane—and I came to the conclusion that we live in different worlds. Better to leave it at that.
I thought about it at the gym, I talked about it with Adam when he got home, I lay awake in bed thinking about it…. My inclination had been to do nothing, because friends—and definitely “friends”—can have different opinions, right? Was I incapable of being “friends”/friends with someone who felt differently than I did? I hoped not. But I was also upset. She thinks it’s OK that I’m discriminated against. No, she thinks it's good for society that I'm discriminated against. Why on earth would I want to have any connection with someone like that? We weren’t arguing about global warming; we were arguing about me. Would she want to be my friend if I suggested taking away her right to vote?
This afternoon, I logged on to find that she had updated her status to say that she was still voting yes on Proposition 8. And then it hit me: A friend is someone I want in my life, and a "friend," at bare minimum, is someone I don't mind in my life. Jennifer is no longer either of those. I wish I remembered her fondly.
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