Me?!?!? On Facebook?!?!?

Last Spring, my childhood friend Linda Valentine sent me an invite to join Facebook. I just didn't want to go there. After all, part of James' job is to find people using social networking sites for illegal purposes and I did some work for an internet safety group a few years back. Those sites are evil, right?

Well, this last week, I got two more invites from people I know. So I decided to check it out and see what it is all about.

If you know me, you know that I don't just do something, I do it big. I started by accepting the invites I already had and then I went to town finding people from my past and present.

And people have found me. My prom date, Mark Davidson, found me yesterday. Not even sure how that happened because I don't know enough about the site yet. But it was fun to reminisce about the past and reconnect with an old friend.

Here is the strange thing to me: I have always lived my life in a very compartmentalized fashion. When I was a child and a teenager, I had school friends and church friends. I didn't mix them up much and I actually acted quite differently around them. At school I was a quiet, studious, a band geek and a "GATE" kid (another word for nerd.) At church, I was loud, fun and the life of the party.

I've kind of carried that on to today. I have friends from work, friends from college, friends that I've kept close to from my growing up years. I have friends from my neighborhood and church now, and friends from our old apartment days. And I have my SCS stamping friends. (I used to call them my virtual friends but I actually met most of them at convention last summer so they are virtual to me no more.)

Occasionally over the years, there was overlap among these groups, but in general, they all fit nicely in their own little compartments. I kind of liked that because I could share what parts or me I wanted with each group.

On Facebook, there is no compartmentalizing. (Or at least if there is I haven't figured it out yet.) My old high school classmates are right there with my old church friends, my new stamping friends, current church friends (including my Bishop), my family, work friends and an assortment of other people I have known through the years. It is a strange concept for me and I am still trying to figure out if I am OK with that.

I must be because I keep going back for more. I am having fun and feeling very nostalgic about the whole thing. One of the girls I went to school with posted these pictures her grandmother saved from the newspaper of various events. There was a picture of me the one and only time I ever got straight A's. It was one of my awkward phases but here it is:
Too funny! I even got in on the fun an uploaded some of my own photos from MJHS and AHS. Now do I find photos of the rest of my friends and post those too?