Facebook Explosion

Note: For the purpose of this post, I will use the word "friends"

in a very American, very Facebook way.

My Facebook friends list has exploded. I've recently gotten a few friends who were people I knew in high school. I knew most of my high school Facebook friends to some degree at one point. I bonded with others simply because we're both alumni of L.D. Bell High School. (I've never met them.)

A couple of my old students (high school, college and my current job) are now friends. I have some friends I know socially from Amsterdam and some friends I used to work with at that place here that I used to work, as well as an old boss from a long time ago.

I have friends I went to college or graduate school with an an old teacher who is now a friend. I have friends I know from square dancing, blogging, knitting, and friends with whom I am friends only because they are a friend of a friend. I have friends I know from church, exes who are friends and two of the people closest to my heart are my friends.

I have writer friends, a couple of friends who are somewhat famous in certain circles, and a friend who thinks she remembers me, but I'm quite sure we've never met and that she thinks I'm somebody else.

At this moment, I have 115 friends. And I could mostly go down the line and tell you how I know them. I've always been a huge fan of keeping in contact with people. And I like seeing what people are doing. I don't have the most elaborate Facebook page, but I have enough information for now and a link to this blog.

I can feel people cringing. Being friended by people is so completely nothing. I usually friend people who ask. I've only hit "Ignore" on one guy (and I recently heard that they can see when you ignore.) You can have as much or little communication as you want. Most people say "hi, how are you?" and then just fade into the background. And you get their little notification (very subtle) when they update their "What are you doing right now?" space on their page.

The most random people friend me. And not just high school people. With alumni from schools, there's a list. But people friend me and sometimes I have to do a little research to figure out who they are. This has led me to try to find some random people myself.

I'm not an addict to Facebook, but I find it fascinating. To me, Facebook used to mean a constant stream of invitations and virtual gifts, and I found it annoying. Then I started ignoring all the bites and pokes and free beers. Now I just use it to spy on people's lives (or what they put up there).

I've always said that I wish everyone had a blog, so I could peak in on their lives (or what they put up there) whenever I wanted. Facebook is sort of a light version of that idea.