Facebook

I have a Facebook account, which goes against my natural grain. I started it last spring to keep up to date with things my brother and sister-in-law were doing, and in the process I added one friend here or there. But I tend to be a fairly private person, I mean even my blog address has only been given to certain people. In theory, Facebook is "private" because you have to add your friends yourself, or confirm that someone is your "friend" if they add you. The problem is, I have a hard time rejecting people as friends if I see them regularly or knew them fairly well in the past. There are some people I definitely would not have added, if they hadn't invited me to be their "friend". When I started the account I wanted to keep things simple, private, and "uncensored", at least that was how I meant for my Facebook account to be used. Some of you may laugh, because I only have 17 friends on Facebook, and that is a very low number compared to most, but for me it is almost uncomfortably high. Facebook actually recommends people that I might know, and that I should add to my friend list, and everyday I shudder, hoping that one of them doesn't crack and add me. Have I mentioned, I'm a private person? In turn, I do not however, have a hard time rejecting people that randomly try to add me because we share the same alma mater. If I can't remember having at least one decent conversation with a person, then forget it. But here is my present conundrum. I am a firm believer in leaving the past in the past, so only people I really knew well from the past are my friends on Facebook. However, recently a former co-worker added me as a friend on Facebook. I did like this co-worker, so I agreed. The problem is, there were always these weird dynamics where I used to work, like some of the women were very cliquish. I always felt like a couple of them were trying to make me feel "less than". By that, I mean they used to issue me regular "unvites" to events. For instance, they would be throwing a party, and talk about it in front of me for a week, and then they would finally extend an "unvite" the day of to me. This routinely happened to me and another friend in the same department. Very catty stuff. Anyway, already, these dynamics in a round about way are coming to surface on my Facebook account. As a married woman with my own family, I have no desire to feel insecure and disliked. I tried to leave those feelings behind years ago, but now it feels like they are cropping back in slowly. I have considered deactivating my account with Facebook, but there are a few reasons I do like it. So for now, I am stuck. But I am not enchanted with Facebook these days. I have officially succombed to cyber-pressure. It stinks.