The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Network

The house is quiet. Might as well write.

I haven't watched 'The Secret', yet. It just isn't something I can watch without being in the mood, and right now my inner cynic is up. I'd rather do just about anything at the moment, to be honest, and the fact that I just read somewhere that Courtney Love is into it, as in she has her own 'vision board', completely freaks me out. I don't follow her on Twitter officially, but I happened upon her 'tweets' and have come to realize that she's pretty much off her effing rocker. This is why I like Twitter. It takes the actual people and presents them as they are: slightly boring, mildly illiterate, uninspiring and largely undeserving of the fame they've acquired. The real people I follow are more interesting, actually, and definitely funnier.

Except, there's this one woman...well, I follow her because she is like my own personal almost-stalker. She's mildly demented, in a mostly humourous way, and she has added me on Facebook as well as Twitter so I accepted because I don't want to be rude to her, and because she's basically harmless if not a little bit too cheerleaderish for my tastes. Whereas so many of the people in my life only occasionally interact with me, one kind word on my part toward her and she's all over it, emailing me, IM'ing me, trying to arrange playdates, etc. I feel bad about my reaction to her, because I do realize that she's basically a very nice person who is just honestly excitable and enthusiastic about everything, but it's too much. Now, when I sign on to Twitter, there are tweets stretching for miles, none of which are directed toward me personally, but they are constant and they are...not interesting. I want to drop her. I want to banish her to Twitter-Limbo, but she'd know and I would feel horrible for doing that to her. I was recently 'unfriended' on Facebook and I was genuinely offended by it, to the point that I actually searched the person's friend list and noticed that they had basically purged most of them, only keeping a few key people. Okay, then. Still, I remember the feeling I had, the 'what the hell did I do?' embarrassment that coloured my face and stopped my heart. Not like I talked to them much to begin with, but we were sort of close, once. It was ages ago, though, and we are not close now so maybe it should be okay that I was unfriended. Why should this person want to include me when we never talk, never write and basically exist in different worlds? Why didn't I unfriend them first?

The politics of these social networks is insane. There is a lot of good in them, but then there is the bad as well, which is what balance is all about. One of my very best friends in on my Facebook friend list and we hardly ever communicate with one another there, preferring private email or phone conversations. I only just realized two days ago that my godson is on there, and apparently has been for ages, and I added him, only to wonder why he hadn't thought to add me first. See? Politics. He accepted, but has yet to actually talk to me, and then I saw that his father, my best friend's husband is also on there, and I had to wonder why he hasn't thought to add me yet either. What's confusing is how my sisters, my best friends and the people I've shared meals, summer nights, long distance road trips and histories with have not contacted me through any of my social networks, but that people I worked with ten years ago not only have added me, but wish me happy birthday and try to engage me in chat whenever I sign on. Is there some kind of mentality whereby we try to socialize with almost strangers on these sites because it's like something of a cocktail party? A freshman mixer? Do we ignore the people closest to us because we know everything about them already and interacting via Twitter or what have you is mundane and redundant?

L., who used to be a boy and is now a man added me about six months ago. We went to high school together, he dated my then-friend Lourie, and we all hung about in a group during the lunch hour. He worshipped her, she cheated on him constantly. It caused tension, he misread it as jealousy on my part, we fought, I never revealed her infidelities and we ended up breaking ties completely. I saw him a couple times following graduation but it was very tense, with him glaring at me and me pretending he didn't exist. Then, six months ago, he adds me, like a grownup would. Except, he hasn't said a single word to me. I even wished him a happy birthday last month and he did not respond in any way. What, might I ask, was the point of him adding me?

Then, there's M., the former stockboy who I played cat and mouse with about nine years ago, when I was in the throes of a deep, emotional shootout. I'm embarrassed about it now, realize that I behaved like one of those teachers who sleeps with her students, except we never actually touched one another or admitted to the attraction. I was absolutely ridiculous back then, flirting and abusing my position of 'power' because I was bored and feeling uninspired by my relationship. Though he played the game too, when his girlfriend caught on to our bizarre 'friendship', he decided to blame me for all of it, telling me I was trying to 'trap him', that I was like some man-hungry cougar. That may have been partly true, except for the 'trapping him' part. I never really wanted him, but I did want confirmation that he wanted me. Like I said, I was fairly untethered back then, looking for self-worth in the oddest of places, but also, I felt a very real compassion for the guy, sensed that he was lost too and that he needed someone in his life who actually valued him as something more than just a boyfriend or a son. I saw he was smart, but fearful, and I tried to build up his confidence while stroking my own. It worked for a while, until it didn't. Anyway, after his g/f made it clear that the relationship would end if he didn't stop his 'friendship' with me, communication ceased, and I think both of us were almost relieved that the pressure was done. The entire time we spoke I can't deny feeling a little bit 'dirty', but not in a good way, because I kept insisting that he and I were just friends, when deep down I knew we both had an agenda. When she gave him the ultimatum, and our friendship ended, I felt a little bit more pure. Then, a few days ago, I saw that he has acquired a Facebook account and that he has added quite a few of the people on my friend list, which means he knows I am on there, and that he very likely sees my face from time to time. I keep remembering the last time we had contact, how he asked me in very blatant language if I would go out with him (he had just learned that R. and I had broken up), despite his ongoing engagement, and how I very tersely reminded him of his relationship as well as revealing that I had new man in my life. Thanks, but no thanks, I said. Now, it is beyond odd that he has chosen to add all of them and not me, when I was the person closest to him back then, but also I sense that it is a bit of the old game. He won't add me but he probably wouldn't have a problem with me adding him, which isn't going to happen. From what I have heard, he ended up marrying the girl from those years ago and I suspect she'd be most unhappy to see us reconnecting in any way. Also, I just don't want the friendship, anymore. The need to know him is done, and all that is left is the residual shame one feels when looking backward. I behaved like an idiot and now I feel the appropriate level of embarrassment over it. Call it a little bit of insanity, call it a bit of potentially harmful fun, whatever you want to call it, it was not one of my better moments, and I'd rather he be just another name on someone else's wall.

Then, there's R.'s wife and how she is on my sister's friend list, which I can't seem to accept or understand. Sometimes, she writes perky little messages which irritate the hell out of me, and would even if there were no R. connection, and I always feel as though I'm being scanned whenever my sister comments on one of my photos, knowing this gives whats-er-name access to the photo in question. I'm less of a mystery to her right now than she is to me, and this is aggravating. She knows all about my family life, my sense of humour, links to some of my poetry, what I look like (in her photo she is wearing a huge hat and sunglasses), and when I am planning on visiting whoever, whenever. When I mentioned this to my sister, she shook her head in exasperation and said 'You really think she cares enough to check you out?'. I believe my response was something along the lines of 'Are you completely stupid? Of course she does! I am the 'ex', the only ex, the only person she has to worry about being compared to. This is one of the uses of social networking sites, you get to size up the competition!'. I did not mention that I've tried to do the same thing because that's how small and insecure I can be on occasion. Oddly, my sister does not opt to unfriend her. It's going to irritate me forever.

But, this is the deal we make when we put ourselves out there. You open yourself up to slight passive aggression which can bloom into outright, anonymous rage. You risk the criticism of strangers just as much as you stand a chance of making a lifelong friend. If you're going to expose your thoughts, the dark and the light, you are taking any mystery you have about yourself away. The judgments will roll, people will think they really know you, and either you will be revered or you will be ignored--tweeted at or unfriended.

This age we're in...it's a weird one.