Floogin on Facebook

No, I'm not on facebook so please don't go looking for me to add me as a friend. I don't understand why any adult would be a part of this nonsense. I can fully understand why teenagers and college kids are into it. It's a nice way to see what your friends from home are up to while you're away at school and it's nice to be able to see what your camp friends are up to during the school year but adults? Seriously?

A friend of mine came to see me a while back and asked if I had seen this picture of a girl we went to school with. I said no and he said it was on her facebook account. I laughed at him for joining it and he said he joined because he was told by another friend of ours that he "had to see this picture and he had to join to see it." So he joined. Over the course of the next hour he received about 100 emails from friends of friends of friends of friends, all asking to be his facebook friend. I can see how getting spam from people you don't know or are no longer in touch with could be a great thing. I mean, the penile enlargement ads, the harder cock ads, the remove spam ads, the mortgage interest ads, the hot stock tip spam, the spam from every online store you ever bought from, the work emails, the emails from family and actual friends really don't do enough to fill your inbox every 6 minutes, so why not add this new group of unwanted emails?

My sister calls me that night and says she added my friends on her facebook account and she adds that she is now friends with 412 people, some of them are my friends from high school. I tell her they were my friends but, since I stopped talking to them ten years ago, they really are not friends anymore. I then tell her that 412 friends is great. I ask if she'll be inviting them all to her birthday this year. She says they aren't "those kind of friends."

So, what are they?

People she knows, people who know people she knows and people she used to know but doesn't anymore.

and why do you want to be "friends" with people you intentionally removed from your lives or, even worse, friends of people you intentionally removed from your lives.

"you just don't get it."

No, I don't. So far, I have only heard one reason for this and we'll get to it shortly.

I ask my sister how much time she spends on facebook. Her husband says she's on all the time.
Having never actually been on facebook, I don't know what it involves but I guess, to spend that much time on it, it must have games, music, news, video feeds of your friends etc because what else could occupy that much time.

Oh, wait, keeping tabs on 412 people you hardly know. Reading about what each person is up to. And you care, because they are your friend. So, when you are at a party and you see one of these people, do you go up and hug them, kiss them on the cheek and say "it's been too long, it's been what? oh, we never actually met."?

So, what exactly is the reason adults go on facebook?

Simple.

To see how badly they fucked up their lives.

I first gleaned this bit of wisdom from my loving wife, Sloogin McNoogin (not her real name). Ok, she didn't actually admit to it but, one night my sister signed onto her facebook account while we were with them and she showed my wife all of her friends who were actually my wife's real life friends. People my wife went to college with and still talks to and still sees from time to time. Not internet friends, real flesh and blood friends. My wife started checking out her friends' profiles and she saw all these people she used to know. She started clicking on each profile. Oddly enough, they were all guys she was "friends" with. I take this to mean guys she dated.

First thing I learned. My wife dated a lot of guys.
Second thing I learned. She was very interested in how they turned out, where they live, what they do for a living etc. I started to see the reason for facebook. She was scoping out old flames, comparing them to eachother and, invariably, to me. She was checking out these guys to see if she made the right decision.

So, I poured myself a hefty glass of vodka and left the room to ponder this.

A couple of weeks later, we're at a party for one of her friends. (real one, she has yet to join facebook - I think). We're talking to this couple and my wife and and the woman are catching up on old college friends and my wife says "I just saw them on facebook." The woman's face lights up but her eyes dart to her husband. He's got this devilish grin on his face like this is a fight they've had before.

She asks my wife if she's on facebook and my wife says no. The husband laughs and says "my wife's having affairs on facebook." She gets pissed and he says "she has all these guys she used to date on there and like three girlfriends from her high school days. Why else is she there but to talk to old boyfriends?" They wound up getting into a huge fight over the issue and I'm guessing this has been an ongoing issue. He needles her about it and she gets defensive because, why else is she on there?

Just this week, I'm at the deli, grabbing lunch and there are two women in front of me. They're talking about? Facebook. It seems one of them just ran into an old "friend" who she used to date and he looks hot and he's recently divorced and well, you get the picture.

The other woman says she has to limit her facebook time to when she's at work (I'm sure her boss would love to hear that) because her husband thinks she's cheating on him. Why? Because all her facebook friends are guys she used to hang out with or date.

I like to think I was a decent guy with the women I dated. I like to think that, for the most part, the relationships ended because we were really not meant for eachother. Yes, I have one ex who I think was devastated by our break-up. She went and married a guy who, according to friends who are her facebook friend, looks exactly like me. But, clearly she is over it. she has a nice (and handsome) husband, two kids, a nice house. I can't really recall anyone breaking my heart but I do know that there were a few girls who stopped seeing me for reasons that I was hurt by but I can't see why I'd want to get back in touch with them other than to see that they are with total losers who pale in comparison to the Great Floogin McNooogin!

hmmm, maybe I should join.