Facebook is Evil

I’m sure the person who invented Facebook had nothing but pure motives. I don’t think he knew he was creating the modern version of Pandora’s box. But he has, and I know few people who haven’t been tempted to open it.

The other night I had some of the “ladies” over for dinner. As it always does, the talk turned to matters below the belt, concerning both our current partners, and the ones that got (or were pushed) away. And then we came to Facebook. There wasn’t a woman in the group who had been to the site who hadn’t engaged in a little “Facebook stalking.” You know what I’m talking about. The subtle perusing of former crushes/lovers/enemies that everyone does just hoping that they’ve gotten hugely fat, or that their tagline reads “I still miss her,” talking about you.

Only one woman in the entire group had actually contacted her stalking object, the rest of us had just peeked at their profiles and examined their lists of friends trying to figure out which person they could now be dating/married to/sleeping with. This woman hadn’t just impulsively contacted this old beau though – before sending him a “friend invite” she had completely sanitized her page, taking off any pictures of she or her significant other that were less than flattering, and deleting any content that made it appear that her life is currently anything less than unicorns and rainbows. She also asked her friends to do the same, so they removed anything about her that could have made it seem her life was anything but storybook, and that anyone who had broken up with her in the past was surely missing out. We all agreed she had done the right thing.

After all of the ladies left I was alone, and I don’t know if it was the talk about connecting with old flames, or the half bottle of wine I had drunk, but I decided to drop a note to my stalking object. This is why Facebook should have a Breathalyzer attached.

It really doesn’t matter who is he, or how I knew him. All that matters is he is the one I always wondered about. Not even because I thought he was so great, but just because he was. So, when I joined Facebook and saw him staring back at me from the friend list of a person I had no idea even knew him, and was from a completely different part of my life, I was thrown. But I wasn’t thrown enough to contact him -- until Wednesday.

When I woke up the next morning I was already cringing at what I had done. I hoped, above all hopes, that he would not remember me, or would pretend he didn’t and not message me back. But, when I got to work, there it was -- his reply. He remembered me, and his reply let me know he knew exactly how we knew each other (I would recount it here, but then I would have to climb under my dining room table out of embarrassment.)

We exchanged pleasantries, and added each other as friends. He asked what I was doing, and I told him while trying not to sound like I was boasting, but also trying to make my life sound good. He responded in a way that instantly made me feel like his life was better than mine, and which made me remember how his arrogance/self confidence was one of the things I found most attractive about him. At least one of the things I could remember.

For the rest of the day my mind wandered, thinking about this reconnection I had made. I wondered what I could write back that would show him I am witty, and self confident, and in love with a man who knocks my socks off. I read up on him, looking at the work he has been doing, thinking about how I could speak intelligently about it to impress him. Actually sat down to write another message, but then I pulled my head out of my ass. I shut the box, thought about how good my life is, and how Ryan doesn’t even have a Facebook page.

I do wonder who would be looking for him though, if he did…