Love to be social without the drama

I love Facebook. It is social media’s answer to the telephone, letter writing, and photography in a modern, instantly updated, drama-filled, interactive-screened shell.

I currently have 401 friends, but don’t jump to any conclusions because I don’t actually have this many friends in real life.

Sure, I’m personable, fairly easy to get along with, and extremely huggable when I allow people to touch me, but 401 is a big number and I am only one person with two kids, a husband, and not a lot of spare time these days.

In reality, most of these 401 “friends” are people who are alumni of either Avon Park or Palm Bay High School. It is pretty cool to keep track of how they have done over the years. I’ve never had any mortal enemies, so it isn’t like I am spying on anyone to see if they turned out bad.

Several of these school friends are people I actually run into fairly often. Thankfully, Facebook has taken away that awkward moment when you see someone at the grocery store and panic because your mind has failed in its search through dusty memory files to dig up that person’s name who knows yours, but for some reason, you can’t seem to recall theirs! I now know that person and where their daughter goes to dance class.

There are also family members on my friend list and Facebook makes it easy to hear how their lives are going and see their families growing daily instead of just on the holidays or sad occasions that draw us together.

There are also my friends who are former coworkers. Some of these are people I lost contact with and Facebook helped me find them again, years later, in different careers and on new, exciting paths in their lives.

Then there is another group I am friends with on Facebook with their own category: people I’ve never met. These are folks I’m pretty sure are safe to know in the virtual world and I suppose I wouldn’t mind meeting in person, but I’ve just never had the opportunity.

They are friends of friends who like the same things I like and think I said something funny to another friend or I thought they were funny. In short, we’re all pretty sarcastic and were drawn to each other based on this common trait.

On the down side, as I previously stated, Facebook can be full of drama. I love to debate and have discussion, but I don’t put people down and I don’t cuss on my page. Civilized disagreements should not be some kind of elusive dream.

Still, I was recently defriended twice because of my beliefs. Once was because I told someone I agreed with on a political viewpoint to stop calling another friend names who had the opposite belief. Yes, you read that correctly.

Another time, a friend defriended me because I was supporting a candidate from the other party instead of my own. Seriously.

For future reference, I love Facebook and I love debate for what they are, but I don’t love a political party enough to cuddle up with it at night and call it my partner forever and always. I married that person. His name is Chris. If anyone wants to see those papers, I keep them in a file for quick access.

If Facebook disappeared tomorrow, believe me, I’d be okay. I’ve really got all I need right here.