Actually, I do want you to be my friend

The Book of Face

How many Facebook friends do you have? I know some people who keep their friends list pretty tight, friend requesting and only accepting friend requests from those to whom they are actually already close. Some people friend everyone they've ever met or known and even accept requests from people who they don't know. I know people with friend's lists barely in the double digits, and others who are approaching 2,000 friends. I am somewhere in between. As of this sentence, my friend list (as of this moment)numbers 539. I could go through the list and tell you exactly how I know each and every person on my list. But as you can imagine, the number of those people with whom I am actually in regular contact is slim. (I now have 540 friends).

I often find myself feeling awkward when I become privy to the ups and downs of the lives of these 540 "friends." I have witnessed marriages, births, divorces, deaths. I know when relationships end, when friendships go sour, parties go bad, jobs disappear.

What does it mean for all of this information to be available so publicly? I feel I am a voyeur, given access to people's lives, but not necessarily feeling welcome to comment on them. And so I pray for people when it seems appropriate, silently congratulate them, look at their photos, read their blogs...maintain my distance.

Terrified of being alone, yet afraid of intimacy, we experience widespread feelings of emptiness, of disconnection, of the unreality of self. And here the computer, a companion without emotional demands, offers a compromise. You can be a loner, but never alone. You can interact, but need never feel vulnerable to another person.
-Sherry Turkle

Acting Out

I created a Facebook profile for a friend of mine this previous evening. While not the first time I've made a Facebook page for someone else, it is the first time I've done so without the person over my shoulder, without me giving over the reigns of the page immediately; it's the first time when I've felt as if I were pretending to be someone else. And I feel that my fascination with that thought gives birth to the notion that perhaps with a different set of skills, I would be an actor.

But isn't this why I write? So that I can create the lives I want to live? I invent characters so that they can make choices that I can't and/or won't make. I get to travel the world, meet all sorts of people, get married, fly planes, be a samurai, play baseball, run marathons, paint masterpieces, understand mathematics...without ever having to be anyone other than myself. I can sit at my computer, caress the keys, and experience entire worlds that would otherwise be well out of my grasp.

An Experiment in Unavailability: Too Bored to Continue It

The message I sent out:

Quite honestly, this experiment ended before it officially* began. I failed. The lack of knowledge of the time at any given moment, the constant reaching into my purse, the jump and disappointment following the hearing of a familiar beep or feeling of a mild vibration, all became too much for me to bear...and therefore, I bought a phone, which I received this past Wednesday.

Thusly, you are now free to call me or text me, if such an activity would appeal to you. And those of you so kind as to give me your phone numbers are now capable of being called and text messaged by me. Thank you for your time and good humor.

Best,
Marian

* - "Official" meaning the start time stated in this Facebook event. It should be noted that nothing in life is official unless it appears in some form on Facebook.