Having recently joined the FACEBOOK community, I am unsure of how to feel about it. One friend's perspective on FB is that people who live on the coasts (and I think she meant to say in cities, as well, but that's my assumption) are more accustomed to letting it all hang out and tend to worry less about the loss of privacy associated with social networking. My brother wouldn't touch FB with a virtual ten foot pole, for fear of possible professional ramifications. I was oddly delighted to find this
http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2009/01/09/facebook-the-ultimate-nostalgia-killer/
on Andrew Sullivan's blog, having recently confessed to my coastal friend that having "friends" from several distinct lifetimes all jumbled up together evokes feelings I haven't been able to nail down with words I use regularly. There hasn't been anything so effective as a reminder of just where one stands in the social pecking order since picking teams on the playground.

I'm still not sure how I am supposed to use FACEBOOK. Once in a while, while snooping around looking for some long lost acquaintance, I happen upon someone who "has no friends". I have to wonder if that's really the truth. Is that person is new to facebook, or has he done what I have considered in moments of FB discomfort, which is to delete all "friends" in an attempt to eliminate the feelings of social retardation that this new form of interaction evokes. Often I find that I'm not as interested in being "friends" with people as I am in simply knowing that they are alive and well after all this time. Is there something wrong with finding my new step-children and in-laws in the friend pile with people I partied with decades ago, or is it just me? What do I really have to say to someone I dated 25 years ago? Or to an acquaintance I haven't kept up with? It depends...