Facebook

Did you ever wonder why someone asks you to be their "friend" on Facebook, yet they never even use their own Facebook account? Or how about people you hardly know, requesting your friendship on Facebook, when you're not their friend in the first place. I guess that sounds a bit cynical, after all, isn't social networking about being social? Ha.

I started thinking about these things about a year ago when my 30th class reunion was being organized. Word was being spread that if you were on FB, you could connect and get all the information about the reunion and upcoming events. So, suddenly everyone from the RMHS class of 79 was on board. Funny thing was, I was getting friend requests every day from people I wasn't friends with in high school, so what made them think, 30 years later, I was going to be their friend now? Again, I know this sounds cynical but I guess it stems from the way I view my own personal Facebook account.

I signed up for FB back in 2006, when "old folk" like me were not very common there yet. I did it because my daughters had accounts and told me it would be fun to see what goes on. For a year, I never logged in but after a while it began to intrigue me because I was hearing of more and more people my age and older on Facebook. I like to keep pretty private on FB. That's why I found it kind of strange that people I barely knew would ask me to be their friend. You see, I'm VERY selective of who I want seeing what I post and what pictures I may upload to my account. In fact, most of the people on my list are people I asked to be my friend or ones I had lost touch with that had found me and I was excited to reconnect with. You can imagine how happy I was when my 80-something year old aunt requested to be my friend one day. In her 80's and she's on Facebook, how cool is that?

I think a lot of people who would rather not say yes to a friend request, do so only because they feel obligated or that they are going to offend the person. "What if they ask me why I didn't accept their friend request?" Well, chances are, if you didn't accept it in the first place, they're not going to ask you why. I've ignored many, some that I see pretty often, and not one has ever asked me why I didn't accept their request.

For the most part, I really like all the people on my friend list. With the exception of a few that I don't really know too well because I added them back in the early days when I didn't want to "offend" anyone, lol. It's nice to see their posts whether they write something daily or from time to time. And in addition to talking with my daughters on the phone, I get to see what they are doing during the day when they post from their Blackberries. I just love that.

Mark always complains about the whole Facebook phenomenon and how impersonal life has gotten. That no one writes letters any more and "who cares what someone is eating, or that someone just did a load of laundry." Haha, I do understand what he means, but there is also an element of just fun to the whole FB thing. Personally, I LOVE reading what people are eating, where they went, what they watched on TV or what beach they went to. It's kind of fun to write a silly comment and have your friends laugh with you or comment in the same manner.

Yeah, I understand the art of letter writing is a thing of the past, but I probably woudn't have written letters to most of the people on my friend list anyway. Through Facebook though, I am able to keep connected in a way I never would have been able to in the past.

Annika, Anders or Niklas, if you have a Facebook account, I would never press the ignore button if you asked me to be your friend. And if you don't have one, what are you waiting for? LOL.