Crackbook

“Hi. I’m Iris. I’m a Facebookaholic.”

“Hi Iris.” 

I didn’t even know what Facebook was four months ago. Then I met this friend of a friend at a wedding who sold it to me like it was The Bass-o-Matic I could not live without. And always shopping for the next major appliance that will exponentially improve my life, I bought his bill of goods hook, line, and sinker.

And here I am, four months and close to 100 “friends” later… and I can’t stop. I am completely addicted.

For those of you who may not know what Crackbook, I mean, Facebook is, let me explain. Facebook is a social networking website. You create a profile of yourself and indicate things like your hometown, the city where you live now, and where you went to high school and college. You can put as much or as little information as you like, depending on your level of paranoia and/or exhibitionistic tendencies. Then you search for friends with whom you’d like to connect. It is surprisingly fun. And it is a great way to keep in touch with family and friends without having to send out a gazillion emails and pictures individually. So it’s very efficient, and you know I’m always looking for time-savers so I can spend more hours Googling strange things like vaginoplasty. 

Well anywhooo, a couple months ago one of my high school boyfriends found me on Facebook through a mutual friend. Even though I live about 700 miles from where I grew up, it turns out he and his family live only 15 minutes away from me. We’ve gotten our families together a few times for dinner, and always have a great time. Which is pretty amazing, considering that he two-timed me 22 years ago, spurring me to retaliate with a vengeance befitting something you’d find in a Stephen King novel… publicly humiliating him and forcing him to beg for mercy. But that is a story for another day.    

Then last week I accidentally found a guy from my 3rd grade elementary school class when I was perusing another friend’s Facebook photo album. I recognized this man’s once boyish face immediately, sent him a “friend request,” and through him, I was reunited with about 15 other old friends from elementary and middle school. It was amazing. I love reconnecting with these people and finding out how they have turned out, what they look like, what they do, and who they are (or at least who they are presenting to the Internet). In fact, just yesterday I had lunch with one of my best friends from elementary school. Turns out she also lives in the area. We hadn’t seen each other in nearly 30 years, but we were able to pick up right where we left off, like we were giggling 8 year old girls again. We shared a special connection and history then, and I look forward to creating more memories with her and her family in the future. Thanks to the Internet, I can see us never losing touch again.

But the most wonderful surprise I’ve encountered through Facebook was reconnecting with a girl named Violet. This was a girl I knew for one year and one year only. Ninth grade. That was the year we both started at a very elite private girls’ school in Pittsburgh. We were both outsiders. Most of the other 18 girls in our class were “lifers,” meaning they had known each other for all or most of their incredibly privileged lives. They belonged to the same country club, attended the same dancing school, and went to the same Bat Mitzvahs and debutante balls. It was a tough crowd for outsiders. Think “Greasers” vs. “Socs,” but mean catty girls, no fist fights, and with 80s music blaring in the background. 

I was definitely a Greaser, not a Soc. I was at that school on a financial scholarship. Of course, I never wanted anyone to know that, so I did my best to fit in. I watched, and I studied, and I learned what to wear, and do, and say. I dropped my working class accent like Madonna in London, and learned how to embrace the hideous L.L. Bean Blucher Moccasins as THE shoe to wear with my uniform. My mom worked two jobs so I could afford to go to the ski trips and drive the right kind of car. I chased the “cool crowd” of girls, hoping they’d like me. I even eavesdropped to hear where they were going to summer camp and then signed up for the same session and met them there like, “Oh, cool! What a coincidence! You guys go here too?” So pathetic.  

Violet was totally the opposite. She was weird…on purpose! She had this funky Flock of Seagulls hair do, all swooped up in the front with a “rat tail” that she braided in the back. I think she had a pink stripe in her hair too. She painted her nails black. She wore combat boots and a military style belt, and makeup (that slut)!  And she had this mega crush on Simon Le Bon of Duran Duran, which was really different. All the other Muffies were into U2 and The Police and REM. Violet did NOT fit in. And worse, she didn’t even try! It was like social suicide. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with that girl and I wanted nothing to do with her. I was horrified about being associated with her since we both started the school at the same time and both came from the outside. So I did whatever it took to distance myself from her in the hopes of being accepted by the “in” crowd, including making fun of her, I’m sure. And that is how I eventually came to be accepted, at least on the surface, by the popular girls – by being funny. Unfortunately, I was the funniest when I was making fun of others. Or so I thought. But I knew I was selling my soul and I was sick about it. Those four years were terribly lonely and painful for me. I did get a great education, but I never did find my true niche and couldn’t wait to graduate and get out of that small, sheltered, stagnant pond.  

Violet only stayed at our school for 9th grade. Her family moved away and that was that. I never thought about her again until a week ago when she found me on Facebook. I couldn’t believe she’d remember me or want to be friends with me, but she did, she is that cool. Violet is still very different. But I guess I am too, because now I’m finally brave enough and decent enough to value her for her uniqueness instead of being afraid of it. She is the most interesting person I’ve come across in a long long time and I’m really enjoying getting to know her. Turns out we have a lot in common. Sure wish I knew then what I know now. If I could do high school over again, I would totally do it like Violet next time. She knew exactly who she was and was always true to herself. She never caved to social pressures or cared what other people thought. It took me twenty years to figure it out, but she is exactly the kind of person I want to be and befriend: unique, brave, passionate, and creative… very different from the homogeneous country club Muffies I chased for so long.

Those popular girls from high school? Well I wish I could tell you that they all got out into the real world and weren’t big fish in a small pond anymore. But that’s not what happened. They all look like they are doing just fine (from what I can see in Facebook). They all went to good colleges; the best their daddies’ money could buy. And it looks like they all learned THE most important thing from their perfectly coifed mothers: that it is just as easy to fall in love with a rich man as it is a poor man. I must have been behind the 7-Eleven smoking pot the day my mom tried to teach me that one. Dammit. But truth be told, I’ll take my decent, loyal, middle class, Italian Stallion over those smarmy-pansy-ass-milk-fed-blue-blood-Socs any day. It will feel better anyway when I make my own money someday from my wild success as a pole dancer journalist/novelist/comedy writer/stand-up comedian/sex surrogate.  

So thank you Facebook. I feel like I’m walking a little taller lately (even without my signature 4-inch leopard heels) from the thrill of making new friends and reconnecting with old ones. There is something so special about childhood friends. Maybe because we met and knew each other before all the innocence and wonder disappeared. Maybe because our friendships were more genuine and uncomplicated. I’m not sure. But when I’m with old friends, I feel like I’m that fun-loving girl again… care free and adventurous and unsullied by the stresses and burdens of my day-to-day responsibilities. And getting the chance to become friends with people I missed out on my first time around the block is a wonderfully concrete way to see that I have grown up a little bit. It is a good feeling and it totally compensates for the very bad feeling I get looking around at the laundry that is piling up while I am so busy “reconnecting.” Thank you Facebook. I’ll keep coming back… it works if you work it.