Tonight, I did something I never imagined I would do - I joined Facebook. Why? Well, mainly out of curiosity - a friend of mine had joined and sent me a link to her profile, so I thought, "Why not?" Well, I'll tell you why not. Because unless high school was the high point of your life (definitely NOT the case for me), creating a Facebook profile (and I would assume the same about its counterpart, MySpace, although I can't comment firsthand on that particular site) is a surefire way to bring back every awful insecurity you might have thought you left behind with your mortarboard when you went off to college.
It turns out that our social standing in this world really is defined in high school. Were you cool then? Well, then you'll be cool on facebook now. Were you edgy? Geeky? Artistic? Sophisticated? Glamorous? For better or worse, Facebook will only serve to reaffirm to you NOW whatever you were back THEN.
This occurred to me as I perused the site, looking for people I know. First, I found my cousin Julianne. There she was, in all her gorgeous blond glory. The odds of her wanting to list her dorky older cousin as a "friend" are somewhere between slim and none, but I took my chances. Then I found my friend Erica. I haven't talked to her in ages, but there she was, too - every bit as sultry and provocative now as she was in high school. There's Tori, with what appears to be a sophisticated, metrosexual husband. There's Scott, in what I can only assume is his wedding tuxedo - showing just how beautiful he is now (just like he was then). There's my friend Todd, from college - with his edgy attitude shining through his photo like a bright, flashing "I'm cooler than you are!!" light.
And my photo? A family shot of me, my husband and my two boys, just hours after my second son was born. That's right - a post-childbirth shot. I couldn't find any others of the four of us. Lot's of the boys, of the boys and my husband - but no others of the four of us.
So there you have it. That sums it up. Once a dork, always a post-childbirth picture posting dork. But at least it's real. I was never one for putting on a front, and I don't intend to become that person now - especially not in cyberspace. I guess I have to get used to "social networking" online, as opposed to "networking" online.
For those of us who have emigrated to Facebook from the likes of LinkedIn and Naymz, Facebook is a throwback to an era best left in the past. No mention of your accomplishments, your title or the power of your business network - this is simply a test of how cool you can look in two-dimensional cyberspace. And maybe that's the point. Maybe for some people, reliving high school makes them happy. But if I had to take a guess, I would guess that there is an inverse relationship between the time spent on Facebook accumulating "friends" and one's actual satisfaction with life. Because if you're busy all the time proving how popular you are, you aren't actually DOING anything real.
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