Wednesday, July 11, 2007

just "add friend"

i recognize the addictive parts of my personality (not to mention the slacker elements), i therefore try and avoid many of these triggers (a "dry" addict/slacker, to use the relevant parlance), particularly in the workplace. it should also be noted that i am an appalling multi-tasker.

in an effort to be a more productive individual i have limited my time and energies to just a few websites (email, blogs), stripping away the mindless distractions of other wasteful on-line locales. however, removal of something, requires finding a replacement to fill the void, for example; stop smoking/start eating, practice abstinence/commence manic building of model aeroplanes.

i have finally succumbed to facebook. in the wake of myspace, where the goal appears to stalk complete strangers with a 5 to 15 year age gap in order to accrue pages and pages of cyber friends you will never have porn sex with, i was somewhat wary of yet another facile popularity contest. this coupled with my mother's urgent reccomendation, was enough for me to give it a wide berth of 747 proportions. fortunately, she has some boundary issues, or simply 'mother ignoring daughter' issues, and signed me up for an account anyway. after a couple of friend invites, i admit; i browsed. i discovered an expat brat reunion going on without me; this is the equivalent of a monocultural going back to the small town/village/hovel they grew up in, or until now; "the lost years" of people who knew me when...(i wore plastic jewelry and footwear, and thought mirrored sunglasses, lacy gloves and fluorescent pink tutus made me look more mature). long after midnight (and my sleep cut-off to become more than a grunting neanderthal the following day) i was compulsively punching in random names, former crushes, and bullies in the hopes that their pictures would now display "fat" and "bald". ironically, half of these people i had never spoken to when i was 11 sitting next to them in physics, let alone made eye contact with behind my oversized glasses. but now with a click, i can "add friend" (including a former maths teacher who brought me to the verge of tears on numerous occasions). if only school had been that easy.

3 comments:

Anne said...

Have you found anyone we know from Tabuk?

Disa said...

aside from us, only gordon wood. ive been punching in a tonne of names- impressed that i remember them, but i think most of the girls have probably married and changed theirs. here are my blasts from the past; johannes helgren, nutti and nata rintala, eva jorn, adam boolsen, rosanna clarke, the said-coster boys, the galea twins, chirs gross, kristie kerr, mr smith, the mckones, jenny asad, the jileks, kaius kartinen, adam and nomi (?), penny clegg, melanie ward, dieter and osker, omar khalil, jasmine, mini ray, allison wheeler, ej hugg, anna and arvid klinte...

Anonymous said...

Timely post. I too, have slowly become addicted to FaceBook.

And as you say, let another online distraction.