I loved my old job. I loved going into work every day. I always looked forward to seeing my coworkers, who were also my friends. Looking back, they were some of the best times I’ve ever had. I know it sounds crazy to love your job that much, but I did. I wasn’t changing the world or researching cures for cancer, but I felt like I did my job well and I was somewhat important. Right around this time of year I remember things really starting to pick up in the office. I worked at a local private university and my title was “Audition Coordinator.” I’m not making that up. Now if you think I had any influence over the results of those auditions then my former title has misled you. But it misled a lot of parents, who were either so upset with me that Junior didn’t get into the Theatre program that I’d hear about it for an hour, or they would try to be as nice as they could to me before the big day of his audition. It was usually the former. I didn’t have any say as to who was accepted into any of the Fine Arts programs. I just did a lot of the “coordinating,” hence my job title. January is when I’d get slammed the hardest, scheduling auditions, entering applications, compiling student files for the heads of all the Fine Arts departments and being the sole go between for incoming students and the judges of their collective fates. I was the Ryan Seacrest of the university. I remember working so hard that I’d actually dream of working. Every night I had visions of flamboyantly talented students waving their jazz hands in the air and singing “Tonight, Tonight” or any of the other required numbers. They’d point their fingers at me and sing “Let me in! Let me in!” and I’d curl up into the fetal position doing my best Martin Blank impression, “It’s not me! Why does everybody think it’s me?” These were good times. No, really, they were great times.
My coworkers, God love them, helped me through most of those stressful times. We were a group of young women who were constantly talking, constantly laughing, constantly pulling ridiculous pranks on one another. For example, when a certain Justin Timberlake/Andy Samberg holiday song became popular, we took advantage of the opportunity to send one of our coworkers our very own, well, you know. We cut out the head of a picture of Dick Cheney, put it in a box, and sent it to her. Then we started getting stupid with it, putting a toy chick in a box, a stick in a box, a brick in a box. Like I said, the environment was crazy fun. Anytime I had a bad day or was dealing with more than my fair share of crap, those girls always had a million inside jokes to cheer me up. They were, and still are, great friends. They were, for all intents and purposes, my very own built-in social network.
I grieved that job when I left. I did. I missed my friends. I missed the people I saw everyday. Heck, I just missed seeing people everyday. After a few months of being home alone all day with my son, I knew I needed a way to connect with people again. I wanted friends to care about what I said everyday, to laugh with and to have inside jokes with. That’s when I discovered something powerful. Something called “Facebook.” Since then, my life has never been the same.
I’m being sarcastic of course, in case you’re reading this blog for the first time. I was so excited when I told my best friend I had joined Facebook. She said, “God. Why?” At the time, I thought it was the coolest thing for me to do. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is on Facebook. I came up with practical excuses like, well, I wanted to get in touch with people I had lost touch with from high school and college. I wanted extended family to see pictures of my son. I wanted to get to know better some of my husband’s family. If you’re looking for excuses to join Facebook, there are a million of them. But the real reason I joined is because, and I can only admit this to you, I was just lonely.
It gets lonely at home. Someone once told me, “No one ever told me how lonely I would be as a stay at home mom.” I have to agree. I get tired of baby talk. I get tired of having all of these random thoughts throughout the day and no one caring about them. I get tired of no one asking, “Hey where are you going and what are are you doing for lunch today?” Or, “What’s on your mind?” Facebook asks me every day. What’s on your mind today Carrie? I really appreciate that, since I always have something on my mind.
My friend who is anti-Facebook has a million reasons not to join. She really doesn’t want to reconnect with random high school classmates. She teaches high school and doesn’t want to get stalked by her students. She doesn’t want to give the impression to people that she’s interested in their lives when she’s really not. She has very strong convictions about it. She said, and I’m summing up here, “If I’m going to be someone’s friend then I’m going to be your friend in real life.” She said that she doesn’t want to read on Facebook that a friend of hers from college is getting married when she should be telling her the news in real time, over the phone. That’s fair enough. I can validate some of her points. Truth be told, I only physically talk to about thirty percent of my Facebook friends. I’m friends with a few people by accident because I thought they were other people, their names sounded familiar. I admit that if some of my Facebook friends saw me in a store or at the mall they wouldn’t recognize me nor I them. What’s worse, I’m friends with some people that if they saw me in public or even in a church they’d turn the other way to avoid me and wouldn’t even say hello to me. It’s weird, I know. You can judge me all you want to, but most of the people who are reading this have found my blog through my Facebook posting which proves you’re just as addicted to Facebook as I am. So addicted that you check it not just once but multiple times throughout the day. So addicted that you bought a phone with a Facebook app just so you could check it while you’re out and about. So addicted to collecting friends and wanting everyone to think you’re so socially plugged in that you will friend just about any one who friends you. It’s a rare occasion that I actually “ignore” a friend request, even rarer still that I will “unfriend” someone. That just seems so cold and callous anyway, to unfriend someone. I’ve only done it twice, when someone was sharing just way, way too much personal information. Hey buddy, that’s what blogs are for.
So what if it gives me the illusion of friends without all the comforting satisfaction of actually having friends? Every morning I start my day with my coffee and I take five minutes to check on my page, making sure I let everyone know that I’m taking my son to the Museum of Transportation and that we’re headed to McDonald’s for lunch. The friends who really care will always comment with a “That’s cool!” or a “Yay! The weather’s nice!” The best of friends will comment on the photos I post later that day and tell me how cute everyone looks. Even better are the friends that see I've posted a new blog entry, stumble across this and see that I’ve outed them and their Facebook fetish. Yes, I know who you are. You are just like me. We are the connected. I can’t imagine giving up my Facebook addiction anymore than I could imagine giving up my coffee. It seems like people care about me, even if they don’t. It seems like I have three hundred friends, even if I don’t. Until they come up with something cooler, Facebook is the place for me. Someday soon someone will tell my son the echo of another Andy Samberg song, “Dude. Your mom is on Facebook.” And he will be the victim of something that is not even a proper verb in the English language. He will be friended!
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