Having a Facebook profile and being a curious creature has been a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, reconnecting with friends has never been easier, most of the time with a wave of good memories and a lot of laughs. Old misunderstandings are likely to now be water under the bridge, and new, adult relationships can be built from the foundation of a shared history.
On the other hand, every connection you make with someone from your past puts a memory at risk. Friends who you respected immensely, thought were the smartest or coolest, or even people with whom you had a lot in common, grow and change as much as you have grown and changed. Sometimes you've grown and changed in many of the same ways, and the re-connection provides the catalyst for a whole new relationship. But sometimes the people you have in your memory have grown and changed in ways you would never have suspected, or they never grew or changed at all. That wonderful first love could now be a complete pervy creep. The best friend you spent so many sleepless slumber parties with might now be a bigoted halfwit. Would those be cases where ignorance is bliss?
And sometimes reconnecting comes with a wave of nostalgic angst. You never really know whether old wounds have fully healed and loose ends are definitely tied up until they're challenged head on. Before Facebook, heck, before the internet, plausible deniability ruled the day. In a few cases of my own, I do feel like I've taken a big risk, and I know that if I hadn't truly moved forward, I'd have been paralyzed by looking back and wanting to relive/rehash everything all over again. You never really know until it's too late.
In any case, right now I'm having lots of fun. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I've always been a bit of a risk-taker.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment