Facebook

For years, I refused to get on facebook.   I had many reasons for this, but recently the reasons to be on facebook were finally starting to outweigh the reasons not to be on.  

The final breaking point was when I didn't know that two of my friends had their daughter.   The husband sent me an email, but selected the wrong Lynda, so I had no clue. Had I been on facebook - I would have already known.

Anyways, two of my big concerns about joining facebook were:

1. That I would get addicted to it.   I knew all along that when I finally joined, I wasn't just gonna be another profile, I was going to be active, but I didn't want to get addicted.   
2. That random people from my childhood and high school were going to start to friend request me.   I know I can just decline the friend request, but I also know my personality wouldn't allow me to do that.

To counteract the second point, I planned (and did) to sign up under my dogs name, not completing any personal information and keeping my profile completely private to those who weren't my friends.  I emailed those in my address book to let them know I was joining and the name my profile was under so they would accept the friend request from me.

Unfortunately, after a couple months, I started to check facebook more frequently, slowly becoming addicted.   Its not an addiction I couldn't survive without, its one of those addictions that if I'm near a computer or my phone, I sign on and see what updates are out there - and then I sign off after reading - but I do it often.  

Then, last week, I started to do exactly what I was hiding from.   Even though Im not on under my name, I started to friend request people from my childhood in NE Philly and let them know it was me.  Mind you, those aren't the people I was necessarily "hiding" from.  

I'm really hiding from the people I was "friends" with in high school after I moved.   Its horrible to say, but I was annoyed with most of them after 2 years, but I just needed to get through one more year, and then I was outta there and never gonna see them again - and I knew one of them would track me down on facebook if I were on there under my name (I hadn't spoken to her except for maybe a couple SHORT AIM conversations, and I still got invited to her wedding 5 years after high school.

So here I am 6 years after facebook became open to everyone - finally a facebook user and now a blog writer - who would ever have thought?