May 26, 2008

Curse You, MySpace & Facebook...

It's interesting to me the overall process with starting something new and online. It could be the same way with most anything in life, but the online stuff is where I've noticed it the most. No wait, I changed my mind--I also notice this when we start out in a new place. And it's the easiest to explain; even better.

I arrive to a new place awash in a slew of emotions. A part of me is totally freaked out by all the newness and not knowing anyone, or where anything is, but another part of me is a little bit excited and anticipates several months down the road by which time I'll know where things are (eg Target), and hopefully will have made a friend or two.

My personality is such, though, that I don't like to rush out and glom onto everyone I meet, running up & saying "Hey, I'm new, will you be my friend!?" Not that there's anything wrong with that; it's just not me.

But over time and for one reason or another we do start to meet people, and before I know it we have a full calendar, and I'm telling the Cat Daddy things like, "I just really need to be home this evening and not do anything."

So within the past several months I have joined the rest of humanity and gotten sucked into both MySpace and Facebook. Mostly I blame Mrs. Bee. She has had a MySpace account for a couple years now, I think, and was having such fun getting in contact with old friends, and would always talk about how kick-a$$ her updated page was, and all, and eventually I succumbed and made my own. But by that time she also had Facebook, as did another friend of ours, and they would sit and debate the merits of both, so I did Facebook too. I got them both all set up, fully prepared for them to sit in oblivion, save those few friends in my more immediate circles who(m?) I already knew had pages.

Which was the case for a while...in fact up until probably a month or so ago. I've been slowly accumulating a friend here & there, but all of a sudden some switch has been flipped, and I have about a billion friends between the two. I'm awash in popularity, I tell you. So much so that I decided I really need to post a few pics on my pages, so people can see my lovely little family. So now that's about fifteenth on my list of things to be done. The "problem," if you can call it such, is that I only log on once or twice per week, so it may be a while. But whatever.

The really trippy thing is the many of my previous lives from where people are popping up. Between schools and churches alone I have, like, 7 different lives, and I feel so far removed from most of them that it's strange to go back in my mind. I can't possibly be the only person who feels this way; I'm sure most everyone relates somehow. But still--it messes with my head. Especially when it comes to times I don't remember as my favorite (middle school, anyone?) and I have to take a moment and focus on the present, and say "I'm not there anymore. I'm not that person anymore." Hmmm, this can only get harder to explain. Moving on...

If I had more time they would probably be more of a time-suck. But as I've been prioritizing the have-to's, they are not far up on the list. They're on the list, just not very high.

Speaking of which, I'm supposed to be working on the budget (and doing my back exercises, among other things), so I'm just gonna go now...

4 comments:

Smiller said...

Whoo hoo! I touch at least two of those worlds!

That, for me is always the weird one--world overlap. It really gets complicated when someone I know from a class I taught shows up at, for example, the library story time. In one context I knew her name, in this one I'm confused. And I can't remember if I've introduced her to these people around me I know or maybe she knows them from another circle which is why she came in the first place......pop! (that's the sound of my brain shutting down from overthinking it)

And, I'm slightly embarassed to admit, I have avoided someone I knew at the grocery store because I didn't feel like playing small talk catch up about the last five years. Maybe I'll blog about that...

TulipGirl said...

Yeah. . . I avoided MS and FB for a long time. Finally succumbed to FB and *blush* really, really like it.

Though, I must confess I've used it as a procrastination tool more than once.

Katrina said...

I still prefer MS because FB still confuses me. (I'm retarded)

I TOTALLY get where you're coming from! I have about 7 or so "circles" as they call them. I can't even keep them straight.

Nathanaelbendavid said...

I just don't make more than 1 friend every 2 years...it will catch up with me one day no doubt, but for now...it's a charm.