Facing Down Facebook

Looking back it was probably only a matter of time. I’m being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the 21st century whether I like it or not. So far I’m not that impressed.

I may have been the last kid on my block to get a cell phone and I’m still not completely sure that it was a good idea. I just don’t have that much to say. Or at least not so much that I have to be able to say it at any time, in any location. And I definitely don’t need to hear what others have to say instantly no matter where I am.

So I compromised. I have a cell phone and when I need to make a call I turn it on. Or if you let me know you’ll be calling me, I’ll turn it on for that too…maybe. To me it’s still an undependable means of communication. There are too many places where it either doesn’t work or you can’t actually understand what the person you’re trying to converse with is saying for it to be relied upon. They’re great at providing the illusion of communication though, which is probably all that most people want anyway.

Now that you know that about me you probably won’t be all that surprised to hear that I haven’t joined any of the “social networking” sites. Live Journal, My Space and whatever else you can come up with have all expanded beautifully without me. Until now.

A week or so ago I got an invitation to join “Facebook.” Since it came from one of my favorite people I couldn’t very well decline an invitation to be their “friend”. So now I’m on Facebook and I feel like a dog that caught a car. Now that I’ve got it I don’t have the least idea of what to do with it.

For one thing there’s the whole “friends” issue. As a matter of fact that one may go beyond “issue” all the way to “problem.” You see, I think my friends already know who they are. They know they are my friends because I’ve spent time talking with them, working with them, doing things with them. Maybe it’s my flinty New Englander make up, but if you know me and you’re not sure if we’re friends we probably aren’t friends. That would make us acquaintances. Which is okay too.

So I guess I could search Facebook to find acquaintances and ask them to “friend” me but here’s a couple of problems I have with that. If you’re an acquaintance of mine and we haven’t already established a friendship, then probably neither one of us wants that kind of relationship. I could probably force the issue by asking you to “friend” me and build up my number of Facebook “friends” but I’m not that insecure. By the way, is there a Facebook etiquette that says that if somebody wants to “friend” you, you have to go along with it? I know there’s an ignore button but do people actually use it?

The other day during an email exchange with a friend I asked her if she is on Facebook and, yup, she is. Now I suppose I could have gone onto Facebook and “friended” her. (Spell-check didn’t care for that word at all and I’m not crazy about it either but jargon is always part of the experience.) But what would be the point? She already knows she’s a friend of mine. I know that I’m a friend of hers. We’re in fairly regular communication soooooo…?

I believe that all I really need to know I learned from “The Friends of Eddie Coyle”. Eddie is a low level hood in Boston’s mob and he’s having problems that have led him to open discussions of a sensitive nature with a member of the federal law enforcement community. Drawing from memory, at one point Eddie’s contact, Dave Foley asks, “Is there anything you need, Eddie?” “I need a good leavin’ alone,” says Eddie. Eddie is my kind of guy.