The Facebook story

Ah Pri! Since you asked...

The facebook story is sort of predictable, but I'll relate it anyway. But before we get to that, a little prelude.

Now, the Khal that used to be is quite different from the one that is today. The story starts back in the previous millennium, when I was this incredibly geeky college kid with large 80's glasses and used to think science was wonderful. People's evidence no. 1:

Oh, and those are my small glasses. My other glasses were HUGE. That, and the fact that what I'm wearing was my favorite lucky T-shirt and I wore it everywhere. Now you've got the picture how geeky.

I grew up in a very sheltered yami home, (for photographic evidence of our incredible yami-ness click here.) In contrast, our school was loosely based on a Jesuito-catholico-montessori education system. I'd say prayers like "Our Father who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name.... " and so on. My college was hardcore Jesuit. I mean, it was St. Xavier's. Like, please.

So imagine your regular 18 year old catholo/mussi who has very underdeveloped social skills, bang in the middle of a rather upscale college in Bombay which has as many cool preppies as it does social rejects, all of them in that struggling, very angsty phase of youth. I was the object of affection of a variety of subtypes that I cannot (today) imagine getting jiggy with and I'll spare you the gory details, but there were several awkward hormone driven events that died a natural death. On the other hand, I also managed to piss a bunch of people off. (I had what they called "attitude".) And of course, there were a few cretins that were just plain fucking weird and there was no rational reason for their existence. Needless to say, there were several dehaatis I had no inclination of keeping in touch with, once I got out of there.

Fast forward to 2002 or so (I forget exactly what year) and I got a Facebook account. I initially got it to stalk someone I was interested in (details uninteresting) but we ended up communicating by phone and e-mail and didn't need Facebook at all.

So I forgot all about it, and then one day I get this message: "____ has added you as a friend on Facebook." and I'm like, um ok, i knew you, kind of. But I'm trying to be polite, so I click "ok". Some days later, I get a message from another relic of the past, "----- has added you as a friend on Facebook."

Now this is where i started to go "Eh?". That's when I realized the damn website has a feature that once you log in, you can search for (say) CC, see who her friends are, click on one of them, see who their friends are, click on one of them, see who their friends are and so on. However, I was bored of it by now, since I'd gotten what I wanted out of Facebook. Of course, there were the welcome faces too so there was no reason to delete it.

Then one fine day, we get this summer student in our lab. At first, I was like "Oh Jeebus, this is one overambitious schmucky preppy nitwit, how can I make his life miserable??". Unfortu-fucking-nately, the kid is a total saint and over the course of getting to know him over two summers, I actually end up liking and respecting him more than I normally do the schmucky preppy nitwits that age.

Now, when you get to know this guy, you'll see that he doesn't faff much and doesn't air very strong opinions about most things (except for saying shit like "Effort equals results" over and over again), you see, deep biblical shit like that. By this point I'm all impressed and shit (I'm surrounded by a lot of inert morons, so its easy). I'm like, he's preaching the fucking gospel everytime he speaks. So one day, he confides that he strongly believes that no one over twenty five should have a Facebook account. At first, I'm like "fuck that, screw you", then it dawns on me, he probably has a point. Plus you can't say "Dude, I respect you" and then turn around and ignore what they say. So after some thought, I deleted my Facebook account.

Edit 2 - Ok he's not such a fucking saint either. I actually have some fantastic documented evidence of him being incredibly overambitious schmucky preppy but I'm going to save it till he's famous, because I know he's going to be famous, and it'll be a Charlie-boonie story to tell an audience someday. He he he he.

Now this week, I'm stuck here in Bombay, I'm missing CC, having a crisis of sorts and I want to talk to her, and she's not online and she won't reply to my mail so I'm thinking "Shit, if I were still on Facebook, I could see what her status is.. you know, out to play, partying, working, stuff like that. So I reactivate my Facebook account and I end up tinkering around, doing the whole click on XYZ 's friends, then their friends, then their friends.

What I see makes me raise an eyebrow. I am two, four, four, four, five and six degrees away from people that I have no desire to communicate with and if I found them in six minutes, with half a brain they can find me in twenty. So, I deactivated my account.

I know, it sounds (a bit) narcissistic. I'm sure they don't think of me every single day and wonder "what happened? where did he disappear?" Its just that I've had one too many conversations with them in the past that started with "Well, fi-nally, Mr. America has returned. Thaaank you so much for thinking of us!" "Why didn't you write to me?" "Why don't you keep in touch? I sent you ten emails but you wrote me only one?" (which is total bullshit) "Why didn't you email me all these years?" and what could be a nice happy reunion turns into me feeling crappy and getting all defensive and making promises that I have no intention to keep.

I want to tell these people: Dudes, ladies, in case you forgot, I was the one that moved like 20,000 miles away. My whole world changed. I had to start all over, fit in with a new culture, figure out the friends from the sharks and deal with the consequences. Oh, and get a PhD on the side. Nothing changed as much for you. You were sitting right here ten years ago, some of you've married each other and thats awesome for you. I'm sorry if I forgot to call you every now and then, and make sure you were updated constantly, but i was kind of busy with a life at this end. Can't we just say hello and be like, "Hey its nice to see you again. How's it been all this time?" minus all the guilt tripping?

I get anti-social when that happens. Actually that was part of the reason I started blogging. Its a nice way to stay connected with my friends, they don't complain anymore if I don't write. I don't know if they read this blog, but I advertise it to as many people as I can (that I don't work with). Besides, whenever I get comments, i love it.

Maybe I never figured out how to use Facebook (or MySpace for that matter but don't get me started on that) but I prefer blogging to Facebook. I write what I like and there's no age limit. Even Saint Preppyus can't argue that. I can invite who I want and sometimes random peeps will drop in and become part of my life. Right, Pri? MSG? (note - shameless whoring for senti comments here). Sure there's the occasional drama when someone that you blog (unkindly) about ends up reading it or someone related to them, but that can be easily dealt with.

Hmm, the facebook story is not as fascinating as you hoped it would be, eh?

And now that I'm done ranting, some good stuff. I'm actually really excited about today. I'm going to meet my best buddy from college who's been working on a ship all these years. This is the guy who made me go to church all the fricking time, and I'm still 50% catholic only because of him.

Last time I saw him: probably 6 years ago.
Number of emails exchanged: maybe one a year?
Number of phone calls/conversations: Four that I can remember.
Number of birthdays missed (this is a big deal): I think five

Spoke to him yesterday, he's the same super cool dude I remember. Can't wait to see him. I know this one's going to be a fun reunion.