Welcome to the Party that is Facebook

Have you joined Facebook yet? It's useless to resist it. It's pretty awesome in a "the world is getting smaller" way.

I didn't know anything about it until I was invited to join by my high school reunion committee (anyone else 38 this year?). Other old acquaintances were equally deer-in-headlights about it, so I knew I was not the last to the party, though some seemed like they'd been at that party for awhile and I wasn't sure it was my kind of party: "You've been poked!"--huh?? That's not usual party behavior. So I hung out on the edges for awhile until some more people I knew got there. Like Jane Goodall, I was studying FB behavior: What are we all doing here?

It all made sense to me when I saw that someone I 1) really like who I'd lost touch with and 2) was truly glad to reconnect with was in the list of "online friends" in the bottom corner. We chatted back and forth and laughed out loud. So I'm getting to know who of my friends is usually "at the party" and who's is there in the wee hours of the night like I am. I'm also realizing that not everyone you'll see, i.e. friends of friends, falls into those two categories, and that's okay. You don't have to talk to everyone at the party, and it's pretty organic who you end up talking to anyway: you overhear an interesting snippet of conversation and you put in your two cents. Well Facebook shows you all the snippets at once, and you choose which you want to jump in on (politics? faith? reality tv?). Once the frenzy of friend-finding is calmed down, you can get to the party and get comfortable, knowing you'll get to talk to whoever you want. Or not--and just find out what everyone is up to (status updates: "Mae Chan Frey is...blogging about facebook at work instead of ordering new merchandise.). Either way, consider yourself *invited* to the strange and wonderful party that is Facebook, and if you decide to come, I will be your Facebook Friend.

What do you think of Facebook? Friend or foe? leave comments...