Antisocial Networking

Social networking sites, places like MySpace and Facebook, seem to be all the rage right now, at least with my generation, the X'ers. The Millenials, those college students you can easily spot looking like they lived through the 1980s but were probably only born half way through them at best, have probably moved on to trendier, more hip sections of the internet. But that's OK. They haven't had enough time to really separate themselves from their roots yet. They don't use the social networking sites for the same reason I use them: to avoid social networking.

I, like so many others, get bitten by the nostalgia bug occasionally. I get the urge to want to say hello to someone I haven't seen in a couple of decades. Traditionally, I think the high school reunion was used for this purpose. Every willing person from the class comes home for one night to see how their old friends are doing and to put their measuring sticks up against their old classmates. How bald am I compared to John? How fat am I compared to Jane? How much have we really changed? How much, indeed. But places like Facebook eliminate the hassle for someone like me.

I was listening to a repeat podcast of This American Life about The Prom. One of the girls interviewed had an epiphany at the prom: she never needed to come back to high school after that night. I realized that she was absolutely right when I thought about my own senior prom. I wasn't an incredibly popular guy in high school but I wouldn't say I was on the bottom of the social ladder either. I was stranded in the middle, able to look down on the poor saps below me who hadn't figured out how to rise above their own stations but unable rise much higher due to my love of band, choir, and theater and my complete non-interest in sports. Because of this, or perhaps in spite of it, I invited a lot of people to my parent's house as one of the many after-prom locations. I was surprised when a lot of them showed up. Perhaps it was the table tennis. But maybe they liked me. After all the speculation, I'm pretty sure it was the table tennis. For the most part, the majority of people that came departed once they'd had enough of it. After all, mine was a party without alcohol, without drugs, without those rites of passage for so many teens. Also, I was still in the middle of the ladder. It's been great not really knowing you!

Which brings me back to Facebook. I could have called everyone that showed up to my house that night a friend at that moment. But were we really friends or was my place just somewhere to go before the real parties began? Do we have that much to relive? One night of Ping-Pong? I can log in to my Facebook account and say hello to almost any of the people that I'd like to see, say hello, ask how they're doing, and log out. It's completely voluntary. I don't have to spend time chatting up the guy who used to knock my books out of my hands about how he loves his job selling insurance or the jock who would yell at me for not really caring about the gym class basketball game. I know that we're (supposedly) all adults now, that we can see how ridiculously we treated each other as teenagers. But I don't feel like I need to prove that I'm grown up. I already did that by leaving in the first place. I don't want to hang around and forcibly, uncomfortably chat with anyone from the old days. But if you feel like it, look me up on Facebook.

P.S. I know I'm misusing the term antisocial with this post, but I couldn't resist because I love this song.