"You Have 1 Friend"

My memory was jogged yesterday when I read a post on Sorin's blog. Apparently he, like many others, has an addiction to Facebook.

Which reminded me that I have a Facebook account too. A little friend in NY invited me to join recently, so I did. And then was completely mystified by the whole thing. I mean, I do get the concept of social networking. (Except for the part where you can throw sheep at people, slap them with trouts, etc. Then I feel like Mr. Spock: That is not logical.)

Mostly, Facebook must be like the electronic equivalent of passing notes to your friends in junior high biology class. The whole business makes me feel like I should get myself a Hello Kitty backpack before participating. Whereas blogging feels like working on the school paper.

The sad thing about my Facebook life is that I don't have one apparently: I can't participate during the day, which happens to be a large part of my day. And that to me would be the purpose of Facebook: to interrupt the workday (not that I have anything against that).

Our firewall at work blocks the site with an imperious warning: "Pornography: Access Denied by Server" so as a result I cannot send growing gifts and take movie polls instead of doing my boss' reimbursables or writing secret blog entries. I would have to do all of my Facebooking at night, which when given the choice between that and other activities, just ain't gonna happen.

So as a result, last night I went back to my Facebook account, where I am solemnly told that I have one friend. Sheesh. That's harsh. Since the best analogy to Facebook I have is high school, out of curiosity I decided to look up my high school alums to see who participates.

I found:

• The creepy kid who sat behind me in Madame August's Honors French class who always wore fatigues and carried well-thumbed copies of Guns and Ammo magazine in his Pee-Chee folder (anyone else remember Pee-Chee folders?).
• One half of a popular cheerleading twin sister set, who now has gained at least 50 pounds and wears her hair like Rachel in Friends, but with more obvious highlights.
  
• Another guy who's name is familiar but nothing else. Apparently he is married and has a lovely wife and three children.
• Three other random people of whom I have no recollection of whatsoever.

So it looks like I will continue to have one (Facebook) friend for the foreseeable future. I will not be looking up old co-workers next.

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ps... I do recommend that you check out stumbleupon. It allows you to find really cool websites and I don't know if it's considered social networking (I guess it is) but I have met some interesting people there and found some cool stuff.

pss...I have a private lesson (my first) with Shorey Myers today as a late lunch. I like the idea of interrupting my work day with tango. What I wouldn't give for a lunchtime milonga in Union Square...