Day 7

So yesterday, when I was looking around on Friendster, I discovered this great new feature called "Friends of Friends." I'd thought the whole connected-to-you feature had been dismantled, but it still works up to two degrees of separation (used to work to four degrees), so there is, as it turns out, still something unique about Friendster to love that the other sites haven't picked up on (and probably can't for patent reasons). But the "Friends of Friends" page is something else beyond that. It's a page devoted completely to presenting you with a list of people who know your friends, outside of your friends profiles. A great means to go around introducing yourself to relative strangers. Hey, I know blank, how do you know blank? Of course, it's Friendster, so probably these people don't know blank either--blank and they met at some party six years ago, had a brief chat, realized they were both on Friendster and Friendstered each other and have never talked to one another since. Yeah, I have a few Friendster friends like that--and MySpace friends and Facebook friends (okay, in the latter case, it's mostly people I went to high school with who suddenly pop up, add me, and then never say a word).

That is the one thing I can say for Facebook. More than MySpace, more than Friendster, people who previously didn't use social networking sites, or at least people who didn't acknowledge that they went to my little tiny now defunct religious high school, are using Facebook and adding friends left and right. Part of me is glad that there are now ways to track down what happened to Igmar or Sal, but part of me also kind of likes having disappeared and sort of is uncomfortable with people who I haven't seen in twenty years suddenly knowing anything I post. It's, well, sort of weird. (And like, having complete strangers reading my blog is any more normal? I know, my feelings don't make much sense.)

Maybe my discomfort has to do with myself and where I am in my own life. Single. Still single. Probably permanently so.

I know that's one reason why one of my friends doesn't join any of these sites. She's still working on her doctorate. She's embarrassed by how long it's taking. She doesn't want people from grad school looking her up and seeing her. She doesn't want to be part of conversations like this: "Oh, hey, I remember you--we went to school together. I'm teaching at Dartmouth and wrapping up my first book for Penn State University Press. What are you doing?" "I'm still working on getting that degree you finished five years ago."

And I guess that's sort of how I feel. "Yeah, you remember that guy in school who was always really good at homework but not at much else? Yeah, that's me still. I'm still that guy. I work, do a pretty good job at that. That's about it. Maybe I'll lose my job in this crisis, and then I'll have nothing at all to show for my forty years on this globe and I'll be a complete loser." Meanwhile, Ingmar has had five children, written a book on AIDS in the Arctic, and last month traveled to Argentina to see whether she was going to take that position UNICEF had offered her in which she was going to help coordinate an orphan education program (turned them down--Obama wanted her to head up a program like that for Des Moines, which was closer to family and her hubby Roger's home). Oh, and did I mention she's the subject of a documentary to be shown on HBO next month?

This is unreasonable, I realize. People's lives are just that, lives. Their lives likely seem just as humdrum to them as mine does to me. I may not feel successful, but I'm likely not any less successful than the vast majority of people in this country. I'm just part of the crowd. Successful in some things, not in others. Like a regular human being.

I remember a scene in Frederick Exley's Notes of a Fan. It was pretty spectacular. It's a moment when he realizes that he's never going to be one of the football players, never going to be out on the field, never going to be one of the heroes. There's only forty-eight of those (or sixty-two or whatever number is on a team--and only eleven on the field at a time). Most people are just fans. Most are just people in the stands. Most aren't heroes. Most just watch and cheer. And that's what virtually everyone gets to recognize one day, unless you're one of the heroes. (Even then, hero for whom and for what? I couldn't name more than a handful of active football players. And if I were playing football, I don't think I'd feel like I was doing anything particularly world changing or important. It would likely be just a job--albeit one I enjoyed. If I actually enjoyed playing football, that is--personally, I prefer to have bones.)

So today, I took it easy. I didn't get home until relatively late in the evening, and I have a few other things I want to do, so I only mailed three people: a Friendster friend, an acquaintance, and a total stranger. I received nothing in reply, bringing the totals to as follows: nine Friendster friends written, one reply (I'm going to run out of Friendster friends to write soon); five acquaintances written or added as friends, one reply; three invitations extended, no replies; six strangers written, no replies. I should also note that I've had one--that's right, one--profile view since I started this whole thing. Come on folks, where are you?