A few months ago I received an e-mail through work from a friend I had not seen since high school. She told me that she was trying to rally everyone in our class to get on Facebook so we could all be in touch and have great attendance at our next reunion.

My first thought was, “No way.” First of all, I said to myself, it seems highly narcissistic, and beyond that, geared for participants in their teens and twenties, not ones in their, ahem, forties. But she was persistent, and finally I “gave in,” vowing not to ever communicate with anyone who was not in my high school class lest I lose my street cred.

See how I just have that uncanny ability to predict the next hot thing?

In the last week or so, Iʼve seen at least a couple of newspaper articles on the topic of Facebook and 2 more online, and I wasnʼt even looking for them. Facebook now has users, apparently, on every continent. Mark Zuckerberg, founder (heʼs 24) and CEO, said on the companyʼs blog on the advent of their 150 millionth member in January, “If Facebook were a country, it would be the eighth-most-populated in the world, just ahead of Japan, Russia and Nigeria.”

Iʼve been surprised and delighted to reconnect with old friends from high school and college, and to be in more regular contact with regular friends, updated on their lives through photos and the back-and-forth of the wall. It also surprises me when I see someone with 3,400 friends. No doubt this is more of a business networking thing, and while I donʼt think Iʼm in a position to actually ever know that many people, for me, Iʼd like to keep it focused on the people in whose lives I want to be invested.

What I find most interesting about it is that Facebook is really a microcosm of life in general. There are the over-sharers, “Kate wishes she remembered where she left her underwear.” To me, those are the close-talkers or the people who get in your personal space in the line at the grocery. There are the unstable ones, like the guy I read in England about whose status read that he “just ended his marriage to Emma.” Huh? Apparently this status was news to Emma as well. Letʼs just say he reminds me of the neighbor that left dog poop on my door because she thought I was not being diligent enough about picking it up. (Let me just clarify that I AM diligent. I should have demanded DNA evidence. Needless to say, she is NOT my friend on Facebook.)

There are those who just beat you up with the trivial: “Nancy is sweeping crumbs after Jackson smashed his oreos all over the table then put on his superman cape and ran around the house screaming.” Thanks, I am dumber now. This event might be mainstream in a lot of our days, but a Facebook status it does not make. Nor actually, does it rank too high on the list of face-to-face conversation topic winners.

The things that causes me the most angst are the photos. I admit to major neuroses, but I just canʼt help it that I really donʼt want the pictures of me when I was (ok, am) struggling to lose that extra 15 up for the Facebook world to see – none of whom even care, I know, I know. I read a funny article by Becky Ellis of TheFrisky.com, which reassured me that I was not alone in this insecurity. She went so far as to consult her photo stylist neighbor for tips about taking the best photograph. (I wrote them down.)

As Facebook has grown, they have put more options in place to pick and choose behaviors you want to include (or donʼt). I read a Twitter recently (and thatʼs an entirely different post) that said, “I just un-friended someone on Facebook. Donʼt be afraid to keep your friend list clean. And if you feel like un-friending me, Iʼll understand.” You gotta do what you gotta do, I guess!

I enjoy having the “ambient awareness,” as psychologists call it, of what the meaningful people scattered throughout my life are doing. I even have some new friends that Iʼve made through old friends that I only know through Facebook (and I am looking forward to eventually really meeting!) Facebook has prompted me to move a little beyond some of my anti-social tendencies to be open to old connections as well as new, and celebrate all that goes along with it.

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Photo Credit © Pavalache Stelian | Dreamstime.com

Tags: facebook, friendship, high school, Social Networking