As of 4:00 this afternoon, I have 6 friends.  I’ve seen that one of my friends is friends with someone else I know from years ago.  Every time I check, a myriad of profiles of potential people I might know pop up on the screen, just because people who know me know them.  It’s overwhelming.  The concept of Facebook is, in and of itself, brilliant.  It has been out to the public for a long time now.  I’ve heard all about it from others, who inevitibly ask if I’m on Facebook.  I’ve held out for as long as I could.

At 11:00 A.M I signed up.

By 12:30 I had created a DogBook with about 28 pictures. 

By 1:00 I was addicted and instant messaging and seeing who my friends know and uploading more and more pictures of my life.

I’ve changed my status three different times since 1:30.

I’m slighlty afraid.  But am I afraid of who is going to be knocking on the door asking to be my friend?  Am I afraid of getting rejected if I knock on someone’s door asking to be their friend?  Am I afraid an ‘ex’ of an ‘ex’ will throw a yellow snowball at me?  Or am I afraid that I will waste countless hours developing and nurturing cyper-friendships and overlook all the important details of everyday life because I’m so obsessed with who sent me a make-believe basket of cheese.

The reality is I can barely keep friends in real life.  Well, I have friends and I have manged to keep them for a number of years.  But the truth is, I’m not really shopping for friends.  I don’t like to talk on the phone.  I rarely return voicemails.  I am better with e-mail, but even that gets backed up as well.  But I have found the friends I am most successful with are the ones that know this about me and keep me as their friend anyway.  The thought of making new friends is slightly exhausting, but I do see the appeal to catching up with old friends who you haven’t seen since third grade.  How does one capture their life in a half inch block of text space? 

And then there is the thought that other people who are twice removed from your ‘circle’ get to see inside your life.  I try to so hard to protect my space and only let in people who are positive and good-natured individuals that I trust.  I have these thoughts and then realize that I am blogging and writing a book.. a memoir.  Well, that’s out there for the whole world to see (and eventually) read.  So I better buck it up and get pretty comfortable with my stuff being out there.

Either way, I’m in it now.  I’m committed.  I have a Blog and am in Facebook, which, by the way, says I have 4 new friends!  That silly Facebook.  I guess friends are ok.  Just saying…..