Benny has been teasing me for years about my online friendships. Facebook is just another way to “be friends” with people I’m not actually friends with. It’s a little strange to get a friend request from someone I’ve never met, but they know so and so who knows me through so and so. Even so, I love Facebook. I think it is SOOOO much better than myspace. It is addictive though.
I’ve loved getting in touch with old friends, but it’s too easy to spy on them and peek into their lives instead of picking up the phone or writing and actually getting involved in their lives. It’s sort of like blogging. It can easily take the place of having real relationships with people if you let it. On the other hand, it allows me to keep in touch with people I don’t see very often…people I probably wouldn’t call because we’re not that close. Like everything else in life…there is a balance. I’m still trying to strike one.
Through Facebook, I’m “friends with” people from high school, college, and all the places I’ve lived as an adult. I’m friends with old college professors, former boyfriends, college club girlfriends, former teens in our various youth groups we’ve had, their parents, camp kids, youth ministers across the globe, family members I don’t know very well but love, my sister whom I never talk to or see, writers I admire but they have no clue who I am, writers I admire that DO know who I am, famous people, teens and adults from my homeschooling group, missionaries in Africa, a guy in China who makes me think and laugh, my best guy friend who quit blogging (lol), my husband who never blogs, and even my old nemesis turned good friend. (hehehe) I would wear a t-shirt that says, “Facebook…bringing strange people together!”
Facebook allows me to view and “save as” pictures of my friends and their families so I can miss them even more. It lets me create clever flair (one-liner, bumper sticker style buttons like we wore on our jean jackets in the 80’s) to send to people to make them smile. It reminds me when a fellow “friend” is having a birthday so I can “poke them” by serenading them or throwing cake or some other inanimate object at them. I’ve had several sheep thrown at me. It hosts the never ending movie quiz…which I have played for hours. It’s my equivalent to a video game since we don’t own any gaming systems. (I know Jared, you think we’re depriving our kids, don’t you?) Facebook lets me connect with other LOST, HEROES, and ALIAS fans around the world. That’s important stuff. lol If it weren’t for Facebook, I wouldn’t have known that a few of my “friends” are pregnant, getting married, or are divorced now.
Facebook is fun, a wonderful way to waste time, and an easy way to procrastinate. I could be addicted to worse things. Speaking of procrastinating, if it weren’t for Facebook, I’d have all the laundry done by now and I’d be sleeping. How boring is that? 🙂
