My love-hate relationship with Facebook

I have a ridiculous amount of Facebook friends.   At last count I was up to 819.   How on earth you ask can anyone keep up with 819 people???  Or why would anyone care to keep up with 819 people???   I've been thinking about that a lot and decided to go through my list and see if there was some deleting that needed to be done.   I got all the way to the G's before I quit.   Everyone from A-G is there for a very valid reason.   I have school friends, church friends, out of town friends, moms of my kids' friends' friends, work friends, and long lost friends.   Yes, I am the one who "friends" the person I haven't seen since preschool... hey, we had big plans to marry and honeymoon in Hawaii and at Disneyworld!  You can't just shove those childhood dreams to the wayside.   Ok, maybe you can.  But I choose to fondly remember.  And technically we were in third grade the last time we saw each other.  He and his family were on their way home from vacation and buzzed through our town for the day.   He and I had a beautiful candlelit spaghetti dinner and went to see Superman - yes, the original with Christopher Reeve.  And we may not have Hawaii or Disneyworld but at least we have Facebook.

I just had my 20 year class reunion last September so about 25% of my friends list is made up of old classmates.   Yes, that still leaves about 600 people I know from random walks of life.  What can I say?  My mom said I was born with a smile on my face.  I used to say I'm friends with everyone but no one in particular (meaning I was never in a clique... just kind of bounced around from group to group).  I've met a lot of people in 39 years and my friendships mean a lot to me.  If you have been a part of my life for some amount of time, chances are, you're one of my 819.  I love Facebook.  Facebook makes it easy to keep in touch, know when new babies come along, know when birthdays are (although I have to say I was pretty good with the birthday thing before the days of Facebook and I greatly miss snail mail birthday cards).  Facebook feeds our natural human need for acceptance, our need to fit in somewhere.   Yes, in some ways its just the easy way to feel in touch even though there might not be any personal interaction for months.  If I had to guess I'd say at least half and probably even a bigger percentage of my 819 aren't even active on Facebook.  They have profiles and occassionally someone tags them in a picture.   Oh and of course on their birthday their page lights up like the Fourth of July.   So why do I keep them on my list?   Just in case.   Maybe I'll have an important memory to share with them one day.   Maybe I'll have a picture to tag them in.

And that brings me to the hate part.  If I don't check two or three times a day I miss posts.   If I take a whole day off I could very well miss a birthday.   As you can imagine, with 819 friends, its someone's birthday most every day.  And oh the guilt when I see a "Thanks for all the birthday wishes" post and I haven't posted a wish.  Do I really think anyone notices that I personally did not post?  Probably not.   Do I think anyone is annoyed with me for not clicking "like" on the latest You Tube video they posted or the latest baby picture?  Nah.   Do I always post a greeting on someone's page when the Facebook gods suggest I reconnect?  No.  But do I check Facebook obsessively if I've updated my status to see who likes it?   You bet your bottom dollar I do!   Do I post pictures for the pure feedback I hope I'll get?   Of course!   And that my friends is why I hate Facebook - because it reminds me how much I need to be connected to others.   It reminds me how much I miss so many close relationships  - people I now only see through photos they are tagged in.  And it reminds me most of all that I'm just a mere human with a heart that needs to be loved, an ego that needs to be stroked, and a need to fit in somewhere.   I want to be liked.  I want to be remembered.   I want to make a mark on someone's life.   Every human does but its not easy to admit.   

To my 819, thank you for being a friend.