I swore I would not get sucked in to the collection of people in order to validate myself, but Facebook just makes it too easy with its constant suggestions of “people you may know”. And what’s worse is no one I send a friend request to questions my right to “claim” them. Only one or two have ever even asked,

“And who the hell are you again?”

Oh okay, I have been rejected. Two guys I actually know ignored my friend request although one of them took my suggestion of possible friends for him and added her to his friend list. I would have thought he would have gotten over our high school antipathy for each other, but I see that his religious vocation hasn’t improved his disposition much. The other gentlemen was a college friend but since I can’t recall a single conversation I ever had with him where he wasn’t a) looking at himself in a mirror or b) checking around to see who might be watching him talking to a fat girl who didn’t complement his hip cheerleader image.*

“Are you friends with my sister now?” Rob asked me.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because Facebook suggested I might know her,” I replied.

“Yeah, I have a solution for those ‘suggestions’. I hit the x mark and delete them.”

And I do, but many of the people suggested are fellow bloggers and writers and I like networking. I just think the line blurs a bit with the constant suggesting. Then it becomes a game of sorts. I have one suggested “friend” who has over three thousand friends. The more popular bloggers have hundreds who are probably readers of theirs and that may be where my drive to reach out stems from. I am hoping to get people to read what I write on the sites I am writing for. There’s nothing wrong with that? Is there?

I have made good requests. I found my old friend Leslie. Do you remember her? I blogged about her not long ago. She is not the Internet slug I am, so I have just heard from her a few times, but she was a gem among the friends found recently.

I am in control of my Facebook destiny however. If I were not writing as prolifically as I am at the moment I would pull the plug on it. But writers need platforms – I am told – for reaching out and interacting. So I stay. 

*Yes, I know that male cheerleaders in college are so the opposite of cool. For the record, I was about the only girl in our circle of friends who didn’t have a crush on him. I don’t like pretty men.