Friday, June 19, 2009

Facebook Musings

As Grammar’s fans may recall, I joined Facebook several months ago, out of curiosity more than anything else. I’ve been enjoying it. Although I no longer compulsively check up on all my FB friends (of which I am now the proud owner of 37), it’s fun to get regular updates on what people are thinking and doing. It really is an effective way of keeping up.

Here I can see that a niece is excited about the visit of some out of town friends and that a nephew has a new girlfriend he’s over the moon (and frankly quite nauseating) about. I can be alerted to the fact that my office manager is having a bad day or watch a friend’s countdown of days till she’s off on a trip to Europe. Through FB, I can play Scrabble with someone I worked with when I was in my early twenties. I can even do quizzes which tell me such important things such as which key signature I am (F#) or what my predominant chakra is (crown) or what character on the TV show Lost I am (Daniel Farraday). I agree with all these results, by the way. FB is all-wise.

Something I have found quite hilarious is that, one person from my old high school having found me on FB, suddenly people I shared a building with for half a decade 35 years ago are jovially hailing me as a long-lost friend. One guy who I'm pretty sure never uttered a single word to me in the entire five years now puts his two cents into a FB “conversation” between me and my daughter as if he knew me intimately. Following an exchange of friendly insults between VCCGirl and me, this fellow feels entitled to remark:

“Who knew Sheila could be so cruel! Ouch! Remind me to be kind to you.”

I mean, really, it’s a little breathtaking, isn’t it? It makes me laugh.

And there are more and more of us Boomer folk getting on the system. Why not? We’re the generation that are determined not to get old. We’re going to keep up. We’re going to be part of the fun as long as we possibly can!