Thursday, May 21, 2009

Read between the lines.

I've already informed Amy that I would be a distant observer to this program at least initially. But I also told her that I would most likely warm to the notion very quickly. Well, someone threw me in the microwave, because not even 24 hours later I have something new to say.

Now, I have to admit this whole concept seems to me a bit like putting your diary out there for the world (and God forbid, someday my children) to see. So with that in mind I was very apprehensive about choosing my words in the last post, even though it was very brief and cursory in nature. As I get into topics that I feeel passsionately about (at least at the moment I'm posting them) or events that I feel the need to comment about, I worry that my momentary ramblings will carry the weight of a constitutional amendment that I will have to stand by and defend for the rest of my life.

Maybe I'm lending a little too much gravitas to the situation, but now that I'm a father, I think about these things a lot more. At least because Amy tells me I should. That being said, one of my favorite quotes is from Casey Kasem of America's Top 40 (when radio was still pertinent) "... and now, on with the countdown." which for our purposes means, I'll get to my point.

Another Internet application Amy introduced me to was Facebook. For the uninitiated it is basically a social networking site that you can find your friends, from all over the world and at all "different times" in your life. For example, I get hit with people from my past, both recent and long ago that send me a "friend request." Most are people that I want to stay in touch with, at the great distance that the internet allows for. But.....some unfortunately are not.

And there's the rub (Hamlet, I believe), many of these people were merely acquaintances, or tangential friends that I knew by proximity or by association from another friend. Yet, here they are on facebook asking me to be their "friend." Why now? Why not back then? How do I respond to that? Facebook allows you to accept or ignore those friend requests. America is the land of Freedom of Choice, so I say we add some other catergories to choose to reject friend requests from like; "Sheepishly look the other way and pretend to forget your request" or "You were, and are now, offensive to me" or "Didn't you get the hint 5/10/15 years ago when we didn't speak?"

I know that I am probably forgoing many uninteresting, forced and contrived e-mails, posts and (God forbid) phone calls with potentially changed people from my past...

But, I can live with that.

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