Speaking of Facebook, I've got two friend suggestions. One is a former member of my band, who actually lives in my neighborhood and I see around town. We have lots of the same friends and we're on totally friendly terms but have a wierd and awkward history that involves a drunken assault, passive aggressiveness, artistic differences and myriad other vagaries. I'm sure we've disappointed each other on many levels, despite the fact we both have mellowed since those days. There are also a lot of good and fun memories there, let it be said. I'd be totally fine inviting him and his family over for a neighborhood Sunday BBQ but I'm not sure we want to know every detail of our current lives in real-time. I wonder if my name is sitting there, unclicked on, in his friend suggestion box too.
The other is a friend from college during which I had a huge flirtation that never went anywhere due to the fact that I had a boyfriend at home. His personality at the time: wild, witty, smart as hell, piss-the-bed drunkenness, midnight motorcycle wheelies and a penchant for eccentric nonconformism for its own sake (a preacher's kid, need I say more?). I have no idea what he's doing now, and although I could find out with the click of a button, I kind of almost don't want to know. It's one glorious memory that should stay the way it is.
I also have a friend request from someone from my high school whose name sounds familiar but I can't recall a single conversation we might have had. She has something like three million friends and could be someone who collects 'friends' like serial killers collect souvenirs of their victims. Every once in a while I get a similar urge, just to see how many people I could accumulate. But what's the point of that? Will it make up for being an unpopular freak in high school? Not that I actually mind being that freak, I'm pretty happy to let that flag fly, actually. Maybe I am not cut out for the social applications of the oughts, just like I wasn't for the actual social interaction of the 80s and 90s.
I have a love/hate relationship with Facebook, vacillating wildly and frequently on its usefulness, but there is one thing I'm sure of: some memories of people should stay they way they were made, dying young and making a good-looking corpse. The alternate is a Zombie Friend, it looks and walks and talks like a friend but is actually an empty hull that wants to eat your brains.
