So I recently got on Facebook, like a month or two ago. At this moment, my whole circle of friends in high school (admittedly small), over twenty years ago (we’re 40 now), are all chatting with me and each other every day, right there on a page! I and most of us have moved away from our little farming towns in the thumb of Michigan, but a couple of them are still there. I don’t know how they can stand it, but thats because there are 6 Starbucks within a 2 mile radius of my house and that’s how I like it. So, almost our whole group is together again, but as grownups! It’s crazy!
I might be getting too old for new technology- this whole thing is hard to wrap my mind around. I haven’t seen or talked to any of these people except one, who has been my best friend cross-country lo these many post-high school years. It’s insane that I can type out to someone, “Hey, remember that time in 8th grade when you said my hair looked like turd rolls?” or “Did you ever get a butt? haha!” which I don’t recommend but somehow it came out, oops. :smack:
Anyway, it just seems surreal and I keep going, “Wow!” Are you guys going through this, too, or have you, or is it just me?
I’m pretty entrenched on MySpace myself. I have 13 pages there (well, I personally only have one, but I build 12 others). I’ve had a Facebook page for a few years, but I only go there a couple times a month, maybe. I only have 11 Friends, and none of them are really my friends, they’re people I know from a music list. But then, I never had any school friends, and would be beyond shocked if someone from my school found me there.
I steadfastly refuse to Facebook. I have MySpaced, and at one time I Xanga’ed.
(He bravely posts that link… )
I’ve had the same sort of experience with Classmates.com though. Probably 10-15 people from high school that I’ve yet to share a word with in person and I are pen pals now. Odd.
One old girlfriend that I’ve always thought had to have hated me for being an immature jerk way back then turns out to have nothing but wonderful fond memories of us. That was nice.
I’m only 29 so we’re all just about 10 years out of school, but everyone is getting married and having kids now. It really brings me joy to see what everyone’s up to and to watch their kids grow up. All of my friends have bitchin’ jobs, bitchin’ families and post bitchin’ links.
People are all over the place now too. But there’s also a good faction still here in town, and a lot of the moms have hooked up to form playgroups (not me, not a mom) which I think is really neat.
When I was in school I was in band and being in band was like a 24/7 Facebook marathon. Everyone knew everyone else’s business all the time. All of the band kids are hooking back up via Facebook and that’s really neat. We even staged a mini-reunion a few months back. It’s funny too because I still feel the same way about most of the kids as I did when we were in school together. I still hate the people I hated and they still have the same stupid jokes and I still love the people I loved. Good times, for sure!
I had myspaced and Xanga’d, too, but that just kind of fizzled. Whaddya got against Facebook, Lare? Have you snuck down to Tucson without telling me?
Anyway, yes, I agree that it’s neat. There’s a lesbian that was closeted in h.s., there’s the pretty girl that ended up now on her fourth husband and living in a trailer, and my best friend from 8th grade, my best friend from 9th grade, 10th grade, etc. It really, really brings back a lot of memories- I remember a LOT more than the others about h.s. because I have a fantastic memory.
Most people are doing great and are happy and that’s nice and everything, but there are also some people that you end up wishing you could have remembered the way they were, which is way better than the way they are now.
Nope, I just don’t have the attention span to go there. My friends on MySpace are a combination of friends, Dopers and some authors and bands I like.
I’m actually skipping Tucson this year - my niece on the east coast has a HS graduation this year, so we’re doing that and then a run up the coast to take in some games sometime in June.
I recently joined Facebook. So far I’ve hooked up with one friend from high school and two friends from an old job.
I’ve also noticed a change in the interaction I’m having with my work friends, like the Facebook thing is expanding it. At work we deal with work stuff, but on Facebook, I’ll comment on some of the fun things they’re doing, and then I find we talk about the fun stuff at work. It’s like it opens up another line of conversation to have a private joke about what was posted on FB.
I enjoy FB. It’s the way I keep in touch with old grad school friends and old HS friends as well. I’ve met some Dopers there, too and we play Scrabble together.
A lot of my Facebook friends are message board pals, but I also have two of my friends from college and a few high school friends on my list. It’s pretty fun seeing what my high school friends (none of whom I’ve seen in person since 1999 at least) are up to.
I signed up with facebook last weekend, and in 2 days time I was communicating with the best friend I had when I was in gradeschool. I haven’t spoken with him since 1985 or so. Really weird. I might meet up with him this weekend at the restaurant he now runs, which is weird, because my family dines there occasionally anyway. Small world.
Facebook freaks me out on a regular basis. I have a bunch of facebook friends from grade school and high school, some of whom I haven’t seen in 20 years. I find it very strange to think about the fact that I haven’t seen so-and-so in 20 years, but I know what he had for lunch yesterday. It’s just weird!
What tends to freak me out about Facebook (and Myspace, too) is that it seems my friends who were nerdy enough in school to have computers or know about them (I am only 37, so we started having computers in the schools around junior high) are the ones who have no (or extremely limited) online presence, but the ones I would have thought would never own a computer are all solidly entrenched in (and addicted to) online social communities. Weird.
It is funny to see how karma has caught up with a few people. It’s nice to see that so many of my old friends have finally come out of the closet, but sad to see the few who are keeping that door shut tightly. It’s sad to see the people who have never grown up and still want to live their glory days as jocks when they’re now cashiers, and nice to see the trailer kids living well. Meh. I may loathe people, but it’s always fascinating to see how things have worked out for those around me.
Not surprising. The computer-savvy ones know that things uploaded onto the net last forever and can come back to bite you on the ass. The non-savvy ones blithely post anything that comes into their heads on their MySpace, and Twitter like canaries.
For instance, I know one highly skilled computer security professional and needed to get in contact with him to work on a web site he hosted. It would have been easier to get Barack Obama’s personal Blackberry number!
Yep. The funniest thing is, my cousin asked me about one of my old friends – computer nerd to the core – and it took me a few weeks, but I tracked him down (my google-fu is strong). When I emailed him, he was in shock and asked exactly what search terms I used to find him, because he had been very careful to have no online presence. Of course, he now has a Facebook, he just never actually uses it. I guess he figured it made sense to have an easy way to get in touch with him and he can pick and choose who he talks to online.
It just kills me because one of my best friends – who is a major social hermit – has no online presence and we all (our old group) would love to talk to him. No such luck. Of course, he has a cousin with the same name that is all over the effing intarwebz, which makes it even more frustrating.