Nostalgia, thoughts on

A few months ago, if you'll recall, Facebook got weird. My friends list on Facebook was expanding from a list of current work- and real-life-friends to friends from school that I hadn't seen in 10-20 years, some who I wasn't friends with back then and probably won't become friends with today, and finally, to old boyfriends, and I hadn't yet adjusted to all of that.

Now, it's becoming more usual for an old high school friend to pop up on Facebook and become a friendly addition. And more interesting, more usual for me to actually communicate with them for more than a single "Hey-haven't-seen-you-in-forever-hope-you're-doing-great" message — or not at all — and instead, actually start (re)developing real-life friendships with them.

This has caused me to start feeling a little nostalgic, so I went through some boxes of old photos the other day. My living room floor is now strewn with albums, binders and boxes, and some of it has crept all the way upstairs into my office. What I've found is that I've kept surprisingly few prints from high school. (I never throw out a negative, but the prints seem to be long gone.)

So tonight while I was sitting down with dinner, on a whim I got out my old high school yearbooks and flipped through a couple of them, just to see what I'd find. I thought I knew those books pretty well, but there is a lot I had forgotten. Like names, organizations, friends and some old enemies, which brought back some of the bitterness that is usually connected to nostalgia for me. But here are the thoughts that stood out the most:

Some of the kids in those photos, if I saw them on the street today, I'd estimate to be eight years old. I am not kidding.

Beauty and popularity are contextual. Some of those girls and boys who were considered dweeby or gross in high school were nothing of the sort; it was a carryover reputation from much earlier years. (I include myself in this observation.) I found myself thinking, more than once, "Wow, s/he was getting really cute by this age," about someone I clearly recall not being considered any kind of catch. (I myself only had one or two good-looking years all the way through school; I didn't seem to have blossomed until my late 20s.)

Beauty and popularity are contextual. Some of those girls and boys who were considered hot, "IT", and all that were nothing of the sort; it was a carryover reputation from their friends, parents, and much earlier years. For the first time I could laugh at myself for being so intimidated by some of these people.

Where the hell were the future art directors back in high school? Not on the yearbook staff, I'm afraid. (Oh come on, I know you just weren't mature yet. You were only eight.)

I'm 36 years old, so high school was a half-life ago for me. I've carried a lot of animosity toward that block of time since then (you have to understand, Mean Girls was based on high school life in north suburban Chicago, and I was never near the top of the food chain), but I think I'm finally 100% ready to kick all that to the curb. Though I've actually seen glimpses of that old high school snob attitude from former classmates even in the past year, that's their problem. I have no interest in it being mine anymore.

And so here I am, all right with nostalgia. It had always been laced with a bit of bitterness, but now it's mostly sweet.

The ghosts of Facebook

Facebook is getting weird.

Well, it always was weird. But you become accustomed to it, and then it becomes normal.

But then it gets weird again.

You start off by being friends with your actual friends. Then acquaintances find you, then people from work. Then old classmates, maybe from college, maybe from high school. Even the ones you haven't seen or heard from in 18 years, even ones who you weren't friends with when you were in school together. But that's OK because, if nothing else, that's where Facebook started: among students. And then you get bold and start sending friend requests to old classmates that you became really estranged from during school because that's what happens as we mature and splinter off into our own separate, sometimes rival, cliques. All of that can be forgiven, because we were just kids.

That's how my Facebook friending experience has gone, anyway, though I know it's not been the same for everyone.

But we can all agree: "normal" now includes using "friend" as a verb.

But set aside all that newly normal stuff ... want to know what still feels weird?

Weird is when your Facebook friends start friending guys you hooked up with when you were 15 years old.

Ghosts from your past.

Names you recognize because ... why? Oh ... yeah. My parents' sofa. And my parents were upstairs. Well, that was a fun evening.

Oh dear, are my parents reading this? Well, whatever; they no longer live in that house anyway.

And now you're left wondering: is it a matter of time before one of those guys sends me a friend request? Or will I friend them first? Or will we just go on, pretending we haven't noticed each others' names in our friends' lists of friends?

And you know you're overthinking things, because you checked every bit of your he-loved-me-then-kicked-me-to-the-curb feelings at the door decades ago. Besides, you're hotter and much more interesting now than you were then. You have nothing to worry about.

And then you're struck by the realization that it's all perfectly normal. Because remember the very first guy who invited you to join Facebook? You hooked up with him, too.