Friends friends, or Facebook friends?

I'm overwhelmed. Overwhelmed by social networking. I'm LinkedIn, Meeting Up, Facebooked, Ninging, and was seriously contemplating twittering. But it's just too much. I had to pare down the networks and realistically am only giving limited attention to Facebook.

Here's my beef--or rather, beefs--with Facebook. It came out while I worked as an university administrator. The original audience was for college students, and when you worked in a role like me, the goal was to NOT be on Facebook. But then it opened up, and suddenly now everyone is on it. E-V-E-R-Y-O-N-E. One thing I do like about it is the fact that I have the opportunity to stay in better contact with a larger circle of friends more frequently. However, to take advantage of that opportunity one needs to log-in more frequently and actually make the effort to reach out and make contact.

Which leads me to my second beef, the levels of friendship. I feel like Facebook has taken the good ol' junior high love note: "Do you like like me, or just like me like friends?" and made it appropriate for adults: "Do you like like me, just like me like friends, or just say that you like me on Facebook so you can look like you are Ms. Popular with a long list of friends?"

There is this phenomenon out there--and I'll admit I'm fascinated by it too--that you can find almost anyone, old high school friends, long lost college roommates, exes, you name it. I've been amazed at the number of people who have found me, or who I have found. But then there's the person, who maybe has a network in common with you (say maybe one of your former schools), and they friend you. And you open up your request and think, who the heck are you?! Do I even know you? And the next thing you know, they are sending you a message using a nickname for you that you know you never gave them permission to use (not now, and certainly not when you may or may not have known them in the past) asking you how you've been. And then worse yet, they start throwing things at you. I'm sorry, I don't even know who you are, I'm just being nice--you certainly don't know me well enough to shorten my name, let alone huck a vampire at me. Seriously?

I have to admit, I have been a Facebook b#$ch. On another occasion, a guy I went out on one date with about three years ago (he liked me too much... which, if you know what I'm talking about can be a major deal breaker) found me and proceeded to comment on how my profile status listed me as single and was just wondering if we could rekindle something. And he casually asked me "what's new?" It had been a long week, I was tired, and regretting the fact that I finally got on Facebook, a "not much" would have sufficed, but I proceeded to tell him what was new. I mean we had one date. ONE DATE. Everything is new. I said something to the effect of, "Well, since we had our one date, I fell in and out of love, I got a new job, bought a house, moved into another new job, turned 30, took up soccer, ran two other marathons, and am living a pretty full life right now. Considering we don't really know each other, what's new with you?"

Is it any wonder I never heard back from him? Well, at least he got the hint and is keeping his vampires to himself.