A Bowl of Stupid

I’ve mentioned several times just how iconic Facebook has become over the past year — and not just for the pimpled high-school masses, but also for me and most of the other ex-pats I know living abroad. It is THE simplest way to keep in touch with all of my friends and acquaintances, and also to find out if any of them will be around in any of the cities and/or countries I’m currently in or plan to soon visit.

In a word, it’s easy. And as such, I’m an admitted addict.

But I think it’s now gone way past the point of mere utilitarianism. Facebook has reached the point where it’s just plain creepy. No, I take that back … it’s really fucking creepy.

Example — over the past month or so, not only have I have been contacted on Facebook by people I used to know back when I was growing up in the slums of West Philadelphia (I don’t care what anyone says, a neighborhood can still be a slum regardless of race, income or social status — hell, just look at the entire State of New Jersey), but I’ve also been contacted by my older sister’s former schoolmates and several PARENTS of people I used to know back in the ol’ hood.

I don’t care what others say, but for me, that’s just plain wrong.

It’s kind of like clothes that have become fashionable — as soon as you see your mom wearing a ‘FRANKIE SAYS RELAX’ t-shirt, you know it’s all over.

The problem in this case is that I never actually liked my ‘FRANKIE SAYS’ t-shirt (assuming, arguendo, I ever owned one). In contrast, I use Facebook on a daily basis … I am a SLAVE to Facebook. In fact, it’s gotten to the point where my ACTUAL friends and I sit around and brainstorm about what we should write for out online statuses the moment we all return home. It’s just THAT BAD.

This presents me with something of a conundrum: can I release my Amy Winehouse-like addiction to Facebook for long enough so that those people I’ve been avoiding for the past 20 years will either spill their troughs of bourbon accidentally onto their computers or, alternatively, so that they’ll just forget about me (which I admit isn’t the most likely scenario, considering it’s already been 20 years and they’re still harassing me)?

Yeah, it’s pretty doubtful.

Now don’t get me wrong, being put back into contact with all there old acquaintances hasn’t been ALL bad. Shit, I admittedly joined a Facebook group especially for my old neighborhood. I did so voluntarily, perhaps out of a sense of morbid curiosity — something akin to slowing down at the scene of a car wreck.

Part of it was in furtherance of my own personal introspection. I’m keeping the contacts because I wonder if these people I grew up with see me now the same way I still see them — 20 years gone. And I wonder if they’ve any concept of what I’ve been though and how I see them in their lives. Does it really fucking matter?

Also, I recognize that I’m looking at the old pictures they post, not with a sense of melancholic nostalgia and regret, but with a return of the grim determination I had when I first left for college — to prove what I already knew was true — that I was better than they were.

And while that selfish determination has mellowed a bit over the years, I am admittedly enjoying this resurgence from the past just a bit too much.

Mort likely than not I am enjoying the cruel satisfaction that comes from hearing about all these people who peaked in High School (and with whom I never really got along with) — just hearing about how … mundane and … well, ordinary their lives turned out. While mine (for now, at least), in contrast, has and continues to be a journey and adventure that I absolutely treasure.

There is also another bright side to the whole Facebook creepiness that satisfies my more Buddhist tendencies, which is that, in addition to most of the knuckle-draggers I knew from back in the day, there are scattered about them several other gems who also took their lives into their own hands after ‘back in the day’ ended and they focused on bettering themselves (through travel, advanced education, or otherwise).

And who knows, maybe these folks make all the other nonsense tolerable. Or maybe Facebook IS just really creepy … it’s still too early to tell.