Sunday, September 28, 2008

Reunited, and it just feels awkward

Back in high school, I was good friends with a person I'll call X. We were pretty close then - did a lot of the same things (singing groups, theater etc) and socialized over the summers as well as during the school year, but as tends to happen, we lost touch once we moved on to college. Fast forward twenty years to the present. One day, my Facebook homepage told me that X is now on Facebook. I was so excited! Thrilled at the chance to reconnect, I immediately sent a friend request to X. X accepted and woo-hoo, we're reunited!

Only... not so much, as it turns out. I did a "personal message" along with my friend request, to which I got no response. As soon as I had confirmation that we were friended, I wrote on X's wall. No response. I sent X messages via Facebook and X's listed email address as well. Nothing. I haven't "heard" a single word since X friended me.

So, now I'm feeling kind of awkward. I'm not being stalker-y or anything, just trying to catch up with an old friend. I'm genuinely interested in X's life and how things are and what's happened over the past two decades, and I'm not trying to suddenly be BFFs or anything. It just seems so weird to me that X would friend me and then not a single word of acknowledgement afterwards... I can see where X has commented/posted on Facebook to other mutual friends, so it isn't that X is just not really "there" - X is active on Facebook. X just isn't "speaking" to me, apparently.

Is it weird that I'm feeling slighted or upset here? Am I reading too much into the lack of response from X? Should I just take the freaking hint already and stop trying to reach out to say hey and catch up? If we'd just been casual high school acquaintances, I wouldn't be feeling this way, but we were legitimate friends. There was no falling out or anything that ended our friendship 20 years ago; it was just a matter of going our separate ways to different schools and then gradually losing touch - first there were phone calls and letters and visiting when home over the holidays, then life just intervened, as it does, you know? (I am guessing it is an entirely different world for high school graduates today, with the internet available for keeping in touch - I was in college back in the nascent days of computers, before the internet really blew up. But I digress...) The thing is, there are several other people I went to high school with who have turned up on Facebook with whom I was not even particularly close back then, yet we've reconnected now and it's been really cool hearing about people's lives and seeing where folks are now and what they're doing. It's kind of been a pre-reunion as we're now collectively staring down our 20th which is coming up in the spring. (Egad, it has been twenty years since I was in high school. Where's my Geritol?!) It just makes me a little sad each time my Facebook status update tells me X has commented on someone else's photo or written on someone else's wall... I'm like "Hey! I'm here too!" - I feel like I'm being ostracized from the cool kids' table all over again, or like there's something green stuck between my teeth and no one's telling me. It's strange how this is making me feel all adolescent and insecure again. Like, "Hey, I'm cool enough now! Way cooler than I was in high school, even! Dontcha want to get to know me as an adult and see how I've turned out?" I mean, okay, I'm *not* really that cool now - coolness and me just will never happen, but still, I think I'm a pretty decent human being, albeit one who is now obsessing ridiculously over this entire situation.....


So, what do you think? Am I spending way too much thought and energy on this whole matter? Should I just forget trying to reconnect - am I just being obtuse? Should I go the other way and pick up the telephone instead of trying to connect via the computer? Do you think X is now regretting ever friending me and wishes I'd just leave well enough alone? Sigh.

3 comments:

Ronnica said...

Who knows what X is thinking/feeling. I would try not to read too much into it.

FROGGITY! said...

hey again... (coming to you via SITS)
fb makes me read too much into things, as well! once i thought someone 'limited' me and i was so hurt. but it just turned out that they got engaged and didn't want to spill the beans just yet. they wanted people to not write on their walls congratulatory words until they told everyone! hahaha...since then i have taken all fb-ing w/proverbial grain of salt. :) (my point: i feel your pain, sitsa.)

LMAlphonse said...

Listen to "Say Goodbye to Hollywood" again, Heddy... some people are just now-and-then....