Facebook

Ah, Facebook. Who doesn't love it? (Yes, a love/hate relationship counts). For many, it's a way to stay current with other folks' lives[or lack thereof] and for others, it's a handy business tool with very cheap advertising. I'm a big lover of Facebook since I live very far away from all my best friends and family and don't get to go back home that often. That is until this morning.

     Signing on this morning, I saw that I'd received a message. Upon retrieval I was surprised to see the sender and even more surprised to see the verbiage. The message was from a guy I'd gone to grade school with. Let's call him Johnny K. He was a great looking guy and all the girls had crushes on him (including me). After 8th grade, though he went to a public high school and I was shoved off to the local Catholic High School for some more quality education. High School, as you may have read in previous posts was not exactly the high point in my life. Luckily for him, he did great! Great enough to peak. In High School. [poor guy!] He played football and baseball, and even dated one of my best girlfriends who was one of the prettiest girls at their High School. I thought he was a still a jerk because...well. He was...until he started abusing her. Between the bruises and psychotic jealousy, he quickly became one of my least favorite people. Ever. It also didn't help that his mother was screwing around with his high school baseball coach to get him play time and every one knew it. Gross, right?

    Now, I haven't actually spoken more than a few sentences to this guy ever in my life. He was THE guy in grade school and high school while I was the skinny, dorky girl who didn't quite fit in with the cool girls in the class. Needless to say I wasn't even a blip on his radar. So after my friend dumped him and slapped him with a restraining order, I happily never saw or heard of him again. Until now- 12 years later.

     Thanks to Facebook, he somehow found me and managed to type out a message reading "Can't accept a friend request?"..........................Um, what?  First of all, what friend request? And second, why would I?? We were never actually friends and I'm really not interested in changing that situation. I don't mean to be a jerk. I just don't see any point in acting like we're friends when we aren't. Why do people we don't care for manage to find us on Facebook and send us a message to the tune of "Why won't you accept my friend request?" or "Hey, it's been a while. You look great. How are you?" or "Hey, we should get together and catch up next time you're in town. When are you free?"Are you that bored since peaking in High School that now you feel the need to start trying to rebuild all the bridges you burned 10 years prior? Or are you looking up the dorky kids in the hopes that maybe they're still dorky so you don't have to feel so bad about not doing much right now?

This would be a good option as well. Right?

     Let's clear a few things up, folks. If you weren't friends with someone in High School (whether you were the jerk or they were), don't look them up 10-20 years later and send messages asking about their well being. It's just annoying and unnecessary. Life moves on and clearly you just didn't make friends or stay friends for a reason. Let it go. Personally, I really hate it because then I wind up recalling shitty experiences of being the awkward kid in school- which then only fuels me to want to send a less than kind response back their way such as these...

MESSAGE 1:

"Why won't you accept my friend request?"

"Because you were never really that nice to me. Ever. Please don't contact me again."

MESSAGE 2:

"Hey, it's been a while. You look great. How are you?"

"I am great and yes, it has been a while. No, I'm not interested in how you're doing. Your stellar choice of a  profile photo is enough to confirm to me that your 'glory days' are receding as quickly as your hairline. However, as I do recall we were never actually friends so please don't contact me again."

MESSAGE 3: 

"Hey, we should get together and catch up next time you're in town. When are you free?"

"No, we shouldn't. Please don't contact me again."



...I wonder which message that Mrs. K will send to the baseball coach?