Facebooked with Old Friends
An old buddy of mine, John (EDITOR’S NOTE: You can Submit Your Google Stalking Story too, but please leave off the last names) found me recently on Facebook. This isn’t particularly interesting or out of the ordinary. Just about everyone has had old acquaintances find them on Facebook, right? Without the curiosity of wondering what happened to old friends, Facebook wouldn’t even exist, would it? Myspace would because there’s millions of crappy bands and wannabe porn stars to populate it. So when John finds me it opens a rabbit hole to all of these other old friends. One person in this rabbit hole is Jeremy.
I wasn’t that good of friends with John and Jeremy was a person removed. But now that we’re on Facebook, we’re all best of friends. You know how it goes. Post to my wall and I’ll post to yours. So Jeremy friends me and posts to my wall. In high school Jeremy, was more popular than me. I’m all right saying that because he’s a loser now. I kind of secretly despised Jeremy in high school. Not only because he was more popular than me, but his brother, Jeff, had this big sweet sixteen party where seemingly the entire school was invited, except for me. At the time, this hurt bad. It felt like it was weeks of everyone talking about how they were going to go to Jeff’s party. Then the party happened and it felt like months afterward that people talked about how they went to Jeff’s party. I had to hear about Jeff’s party for at least a year. So I’m not thrilled at all that Jeff’s brother Jeremy friended me, but I have to pretend to be absolutely fine with it. I friend him back and post to his wall something like, “What’s up?! Long time no speak.” He posts something equally pseudo-friendly back on my wall and we exchange these greetings for a few days until communication slowly breaks off. The whole time I’m wondering what is going on with his brother, Jeff, but I don’t ask.
I Google stalk him. Unfortunately, he shares a similar name with a famous actor so it’s not easy to search for him on Google. I had to add the city we’re from to narrow the search results, then I added in his brother’s name. That did the trick. I found Jeff’s name… In an obituary. He died in a motorcycle crash. I never liked Jeff in high school, but this news hit me like a ton of bricks. I immediately wrote his brother to tell him how sorry I was about what happened. He wrote back thanking me for expressing my condolences even though the accident happened almost seven years ago. If only he knew my real regret comes from hating his dead brother for all of these years.
January 10th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Sorry, to hear the guy died, just not sure if you were. This is sad and happy. Wait, I know, bittersweet.
January 10th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
This is a great reason not to use Facebook.
January 13th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
I have a bunch of people I went to high school with on my facebook and they now act like we are such great friends even though we never talked as teenagers.
January 13th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Isn’t funny how those people were’nt really your friends in school..but are now wanting to win a popularity contest on how many friends they can get on their myspace an facebook….sooooooooo sad.
February 7th, 2009 at 11:45 am
he knows now
January 31st, 2010 at 8:58 pm
So I am suppose to be doing a 4 page outline.. But I ran into this when I typed in oldfriends and facebook or whatever and always seems to throw me off track!! — BUTTT anywho.. I am so sorry.. that you went through that in HS.. it is rough.. and then to hear that… but what he should have learned also was, the classic saying that i forget how it goes.. but its like dont be mean to people, hurt them, bla bla bc the next day they could be gone.. or vise versa, he could be gone, so I know he is very sorry. I think you should go to a psychic… there really are true ones out there.. you just got to find them.. I ‘ve been to many.. and found good ones.. maybe he will reach out to you, talk to you, say he is sorry… take care!
August 2nd, 2010 at 4:17 pm
LOL…
Funny reading about this.
how do we judge popularity in school? You are voted King/Queen of Prom? You are socially charismatic and people look up to you? Everyone knows your name?
I was a anti-popularity person. I hated the limelight… but I loved meeting people. I was one of those guys who had a group of misfits that didnt fit into any social group so the misfits banded as friends and even used a term “Zu Krew”, because we were the Zoo.
People passed by and stared at the kids not wanting popularity…
We knew it was a falling star waiting to happen. One day you getr out of school and realize… oh all that waste of time.
I did put my foot in a lot of doors, I was the oddball geek/jock/kicker/etc kid that was trying everything out just to improve myself with skill. Played saports because I was forced to by a parent and teacher. I tried drama because it was fun, although the Thespians were numnuts. I excelled in computers, but that wasnt a good thing in the 80′s.
But 1 fell stroke of a idiot trying to get me to fight him propelled me into a world of strangeness. I got a nickname, because it was my dead dogs name. He knew I was upset, ovber its death, and so he started chiming it. But it backfired. I never fought him, I never backed down from him… the crazy eyes sortof just made him go away.
But the girls thought it was cute. god forbid!
LOL
By the end of highschool I felt like Highschool was an episode of cheers. Everyone knew my name, and I laughed at them.
I hated them using that name but it grew on me.
I had aquaintances who used Facebook. I’d heard about it, but being IT I stayed away due to viral issues that myspace and facebook presented. but I was lured in by someone i dated.
Within months, nearly the whole graduation class had me friendes. People use me to find other people they are looking for. I’ve got 1000′s of aquaintances befriended and honestly I rmemeber their names, faces, and I have vivid memories about them from the school days. Crystal clear.
I was rarely ever invited to a non-Zu Krew gathering… but they all seem to have loved my social happiness and smile that I always lived with. I’m a goof and I laugh at the inane.. but people remember that I was always a shoulder to talk to and an ear to listen. a smile to brighten their day?
Holy crap… was I popular without trying to be.. even though I wasnt on the invite lists?
Reunions are funny… “I remember you quite well.. …” … “I cant believe you remember that”! my nickname rolls out and they are suddenly my best friend.
I am a Facebook magnet for the lost souls of life.