Ignoring Friend Requests (Kind Of)

I joined Facebook. I succumbed to Facebook.

Peer pressure and curiosity won out. I joined, late Friday night, and went to bed with a little pit in my stomach. I already exist in enough public arenas, and here I was willingly subjecting myself to more scrutiny. Tweeting and blogging are anonymous enough, but FACEbook? The idea is to post your FACE, and Your Real Name. Egads.

Just last week I was suggesting to a colleague that our students' social lives, it seems, never sleep.

Back in The Day, we had one-on-one phone time (unless you had or knew how to use a Party Line) and notes that we folded up and passed during or between classes. Sure, such missives were confiscated, dropped, and their contents divulged. But what kids do today, between texting and MySpaceing and Facebooking and LiveJournaling, amounts to continual live broadcasting, through class, through the night, with rumors and love declarations and disses delivered en masse and at warp speed.

It's got to be stressful.

Of course, the thirty-somethings I know are jumping on the social network bandwagon with enthusiasm. Somehow, though, I am guessing the stakes are not the same. No one (including Myself) could ruin me on Facebook now, I hope? My blog won't get me fired, right? Please?

Perhaps the good news is that I can't access Facebook at work, because of our Filter. That makes me the Only Person at work who can't access Facebook at work, because I know for a fact that students have found proxy servers and other beyond-me ways around our school district's security features. Last year I asked the Tech Department for temporary access to MySpace so I could use my dummy page to verify that a particular student had changed her rather inappropriate profile photo, only to find a) she was still there, in flagrante, and b) she was ((ONLINE NOW!)), during 4th period.

I'm a little scared. I do not want to beFriend students. I want to ignore Friend Requests from people I genuinely do not know, even IF we have three friends in common. Is that rude? I know how to not be rude in Real Life, but I'm not sure what signals I send out on Facebook.

[And dammit, I just added a Friend I do not know by accidentally clicking on the Confirmation. I am so not in control of my Facebook Peer Group].

So far, Facebook is proving to be a source of endless Amusement, Bemusement and Consternation. There's the "nudging" and "poking" (give me a break). My sister and her Friend keep accepting "Fresh Lumpia" and "Adobo" from each other "via Filipino Food." One of my Friends just joined the Group, "Bitch Please...I am From Poland." And I just learned that I can add "Pieces of Flair" to my Facebook Page, a la Office Space. You're kidding, right?

I am in way over my head.

Meanwhile, coincidentally, something moved my daughter to make her very own Facebook page equivalent yesterday, a list of "Pepl I Like." There were only three "pepl" on this list, including her sister, under the category of "Kind Of" (spelled "ciav") and her cousin and a classmate, under the category of "Really" ("rile").

Facebook allows no such distinctions, which is why I am Really Friends with a guy I do not even Kind Of know. *Sigh*