Facebook me this...

Recently I have been devoting a great deal of my free time (which is most of the day and a large majority of the evening) to exploring new arenas and talking to strangers. A new commitment that has destroyed any remaining lattice work that my mom's paranoia and total devotion to living in fear had been able to develop through my childhood.

While doing this I have come to several conclusions about my generation and the faults of technological advancement....

Myspace may be one giant networking site for whores and pedophiles, but facebook is becoming the unofficial site for spreading awkwardness and general social impotence.

Thursday night I went into the city to score some free booze from an alumni association of a high school that I didn't actually go to. I managed to score an invite from a friend who was an alum, and happily traded in my pajama uniform for business dress. The event was unbalanced mix of the most haughty and stiff social climbers from the area and just a few teachers and young alums from the school - the latter of whom were clearly in attendance only because of the 'open bar' sub script on the event invite.

After about five awkward introductions to the more senior crowd, all of whom tried to guess my graduation year as if it were an auction, I threw back my third glass of wine and stepped into what I thought was my rightful place with some of the twenty-somethings. Now, it may have been the formal setting of the event, the fact that I knew everyone was backed by a great education, or simply that I had just taken three drinks to the face in approximately 30 minutes, but I definitely felt like this group was more socially developed and aware than those I usually stumble upon in my travels.

After a few minutes the inevitable ' what do you do?' question arose, and I found myself deep in a conversation with a guy who had graduated 4 years ahead of me and had also recently left his job. While I think he may have been forcibly removed from his place of employment, and was clearly embellishing his 'awesome' experience of being jobless, my blood level and I appreciated his stories. Eventually we were joined by two older and painfully boring members of the alumni board to whom I shared some information about my developing non-profit and my fundraising goals for the upcoming year. As I am wrapping up my elevator speech and planning my escape from this situation, my new friend proceeds to uncomfortably haggle with these gentlemen and outright ask them to get out their checkbooks for the cause. Thankfully for me, but probably not the children of Ghana, we were interrupted by the clanging of some glasses and what turned out to be a long winded request by the school for millions of dollars.

After discussion and several speakers, I discovered the super waspy refreshments and made my way over to collect some rabbit food and cheese. As I was carefully making my selection, picking through the veggies with the catering tongs, my aforementioned networking cohort slid up beside me and said "so...uh...can I facebook you?' Are. You. Joking???

In an effort to hold back my laughter, I used the tongs to gesture at my name tag, and continued filling up my plate as my name was saved in a crackberry. Is this really what we are coming to? We now ask for facebook friends because god forbid we would acquire real live friends, and make direct communication?

Sadly, this isn't the first time that facebook has or will rear its awkward head as a pre-requisite for hanging out. And I have to say, that as much as I want to laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, this pre-friendship tactic can be a tremendous mind-fuck and source of unreasonable insecurity... and I mean that both literally and figuratively. The literal facebook friending 'insecurity' comes when someone of the opposite sex that makes it into the 'potential and desperately needed possibility for human contact' category gains that full friend access to your profile, and then seemingly falls off the face of the earth. The result of this leaving you to question your profile content, wall posts, pictures, and overall worth as a human being as you slip uncontrollably into a borderline psychotic episode. That being said, the alternate experience of insecurity seems somewhat preferable, but brings into question feelings of personal security and privacy from the perverts that you call your friends.

About a week ago I got caught off guard by a facebook 'instant message' from a guy friend of mine that I actually had been plotting to seduce for months-- which is the underlying reason that I didn't immediately sign off and pretend that I never received the message. The conversation started off pretty well, and then took a serious down turn about 4 lines in when he revealed to me that he was sitting at home naked looking through all my pictures. I mean, really? It's not as if I am unaware of the private practices of guys, but if you're going to look through my pictures is it too much to ask you to put it in the spank bank and move on? Do you really need to look through them in real time and actually talk to me about it? That's more of a third date conversation if you ask me.....or at LEAST a third drink one. Don't catch me off guard when i am sober at home on a tuesday night, that's just bad form.

I had a myspace account for about a week when I was in college and quickly terminated it when I realized that it was just a networking site for orgies and anonymous sex with local spreaders of the clap. While myspace was not at all something I am interested in, at least the people on it are aware of its utility and are up front about exactly what they are looking for. Facebook operates under the clever guise of a social networking site, but fails to include the disclaimer that it will inevitably carry you through a multitude of psychotic breaks, possibly cause you to be deemed 'unemployable' and essentially evaluate your worth in a forum of judgement by your peers and a handful of perverts that you mistook for friends.