Sunday, July 01, 2012

(Anti) social networking

Just hashing out a couple of thoughts.... I have a robust friends list on Ye Olde FB. Some of those friends, admittedly, I've never met in person. We have shared hobbies, and in one case, were happy enough with a conversation through a mutual friend to click the request button. Most of that list, though, are people who I've actually had in my life. Sometimes it's the warm fuzzy of remembering someone. Sometimes it's the curiosity of how someone's life turned out after a couple of decades apart. Sometimes it's new friends. Sometimes it's a completely unique set of circumstances that leads me to be thrilled to be able to reconnect. There isn't anyone on that list that I wouldn't sit down and have a cup of coffee with. I have a pending request from someone who, many years ago, absolutely shredded me. Saw me respond to someone from our past. Has been sending me messages about his current life. You're not in jail, and you're not dead. That's as much as I want to know. I don't wish you ill or harm. I just don't want you, however tenuously, in my current sphere. Telling me that it's "funny how the universe works" because we have kids the same age.... no, that's not the universe, that's simple effing probability, since we're the same age. I don't expect that the person who contacts me now is the same person who I left behind. I'm not the same person who left that person behind. But there is nothing about that request button that says "I have grown," "I am aware of what I changed from," or "I am sorry about how things were so long ago." Clicking accept means, well, acceptance without any of that. And I can't do it. I'm choosing to maintain my list as people I'd be happy to sit and have a cup of coffee with.