Recently, I read a post by a famous author and in it was a photograph of her husband and another man connected to where her husband works who they’d had over to their house. I did a double take when I saw the photo of the other man and his name because he was someone I used to know, even went out with. It wasn’t that surprising really, because said famous author lives down the street from my Chicago place, which is also where I grew up. In other words in my neighborhood.
My first impulse was to contact him. I considered sending him a friend request. But what would be the point in contacting him? From the author’s post, I was able to figure out what he had done with his life since I knew him. Did I need to know more? Did I really want to know more? I did leave a comment on the author’s post and mentioned that I’d gone to high school and college with her husband’s visitor.
She’s a famous author so probably thirty other people left comments on her post. Would she read them all and perhaps pass mine on to the man in the photo? If she did would he even remember me? Unlike a lot of women on Facebook who go by their maiden and married names, I just go by my married name. So, he might not even realize who I was.
It is so weird with Facebook how you can be sort of voyeur on people –see what’s going on with them without any actual contact. I had been staring at the post for a long time and decided to go ahead and send him a friend request, but I regretted it as soon as I hit the send button. But Facebook has something for those things you regret doing. You can unsend a friend request, which I did.
Some things are probably best left alone.
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4 comments:
Yes, often the past is better left in the past. That's been my experience.
It sounds like this type of situation could make a nice plot complication, though!
Social media can be fun but complicated, Betty. It's enjoyable to learn what people from one's past are up to, but friending them? I don't know, although I did friend someone whose past connection to me was remote but interesting. I sometimes see on FB what he's up to now.
Planner, sometimes it works out reconnecting with people from the past, but it seems to be mostly catching up online.
Linda, the worst is when you send a message or friend request to someone you used to know and you never hear anything back. It happened with a friend I had in college. I sent her a long message referring back to some adventures we had together and got nada in return. Oh, well.
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