"Friends".

Facebook.
You either love it or you hate it, I've heard it said.

Having an available 'database' to which you can voluntarily add all your vital (and not so vital) statistics seems a pretty good idea.
You can find people, people can find you.
Your 'profile' can outline everything about you, or very little, depending on how you feel.
Social status and general interests to education, work experience and sexual orientation.

I do have an account, but I can't say I love Facebook.

On the one hand, it is nice to be able to find people who you've 'lost touch' with over the years for one reason or another.
I found one of my old roommates from years ago (or rather, she found me) and I was happy to have some other old friends who had gotten lost in the shuffle find their way back into my life.
But other people have tracked me down as well, and I'm not always so pleased about that.
For instance, an old boyfriend of mine contacted me through this network recently.

What I can't figure out is why.
We didn't part particularly amicably.
Also? It was almost 17 years ago that we dated.
I only reflected on him occasionally over the years, and that was to chastise myself for being such a fool.

So why did HE feel the need to look me up? Why did he need to contact me? And, even stranger, to contact Whatsisface and say to him, "I'm Tai's ex-boyfriend. I don't mean any harm."

Maybe he remembers that 3 months of our lives differently from me, after all 17 years have elapsed. Hmm, nah, it ended poorly. Surely he didn't forget that!

Other people, too, have contacted me and I find their interest in writing to me just as odd.
People I never spoke to in school are sending me 'friend requests'.
Others with whom I had but a passing acquaintance (as in, 'I passed them in the hall at school') seem eager to share with me their life stories.
I don't get it! It baffles me.

Some folks are left in the past for good reason, and I'd rather like them to stay there, thanks very much.
Surely others would like me to stay in their past, too, and I will happily stay there.
Far be it for me to intrude on their present lives, especially if I barely knew them then, and don't know them at all now.
(Though if everyone thought like me, Facebook would surely be a flop instead of the amazing success it is.)
Could just be I'm a misanthrope.

But the more I think about it, the more I wonder if my distaste for the whole thing is derived from my feeling that I haven't really done all that much to tell anyone about.
No cure for cancer, no space walks and no lotto wins here.

My life HAS been interesting and wonderful in it's own way, but it seems odd to me to pull out these individual incidences and dog and pony them for people who I probably wouldn't recognize in the street.
Seems too much an accounting of my life for people that I don't know.

And, it seems like way too much obligation to me.
When these veritable strangers contact me, my inner 'nice girl' requires that I politely accept their 'friend request' and say 'yes'. But all I really want to do is holler "NONONO, I don't want to be your friend. I wasn't then and I don't want to be now."
They tell me about their children, and enquire about mine (I don't have any), tell me about their camping trip (I don't like camping) and ask if I'll join a group (no) they've set up.
I'm a wretch and I don't care.

So I think I'm going to take myself off Facebook.
I just can't handle any more "friends".