The Good And Bad Of Social Websites.

Note: I originally started drafting this entry back in November. THAT's how long I've been stewing about this.

My high school alumni organization wants me to join their group on Facebook.

I don't know if I really want to. There's a lot of shit they don't know about me, that I don't want them to know. Like, for instance, that I have a blog in which I mock and berate stupid people while emptying a magazine of obscenities.

Let's just say, I was a MUCH different person in high school.

ETA: First, lemme give you a bit of background about my high school. Among its distinguished alumni are George W. Bush's head speech writer AND his chief fundraiser. They're uberconservative and uberproud of it. Republican to the MARROW. You had to sign something when you applied to go there that said you wouldn't drink or even dance while you were a student - on or off school grounds. We didn't have dances. We had Banquets. You looked forward to the Junior/Senior BANQUET. Yeah.

(Anybody hearing the song "Footloose" in their head right now?)

When I started there, we couldn't wear shorts or even jeans. For a while, (before I got there, thank God) girls had to wear skirts or dresses to school every day. Eventually they lightened up and let the kids wear shorts, when they got a new Headmaster who was from Florida. You'd get detention for not wearing a belt if your pants had belt loops. I'm not kidding. I was on the Pom Pom team (shut up) and we had to wear skirts that covered our knees. Other schools made fun of us.

Sound like one of those creepy polygamist sects, kinda?

I think I'm way more fun than I was then, but I can't deny the existence of the Me I was in 1989, before I'd ever had a drink, or a one-night-stand, or pierced nipples, or became an unwed mother, or experienced many of the things that would shock the shit out of the crowd I hung out with in high school.

I'm sure they all have their own stories, too. I mean, I can't be the only one with a dark side. But I haven't joined the church that a lot of my high school friends go to because I converted to Catholicism when I got married. That really doesn't even have anything to do with it - I was never Presbyterian like most of the families at my school, but that was never really my scene anyway. I never had visions of my kids befriending my friends' kids and living on the same street and seeing them every day and twice on Sunday. It always felt like Inbreeding to me - like where the Children of the Corn came from.

I don't miss high school. I miss my friends, sure, but I feel so fake whenever I run into someone who knew High School Me. My kids go to public school. I buy their clothes at Goodwill. I occasionally tell them to shut up. Some days I hate my life. I take anti-depressant medication. We don't go to church much. I like to be tied up and spanked. I voted for Barack Obama.

Any one of those things would be enough to trigger the Emergency Prayer Chain. But they're ALL me.

Long story short, I created a new Facebook account specifically for this alumni group. And I'm really conflicted about the fact that I felt I had to do that. It's actually caused me a great deal of anxiety this week.

Why do I filter myself from some people? Because it's easier than explaining or defending the choices I've made and the life that I have? Am I sparing them the uncomfortable details, or sparing myself from revealing them? Why can't I just be who I am and not Nerf it down for sake of simplicity? What does it matter what they think of me, especially now? Do I even care if I fit in with these people? I never did then, and I want to even less now.

So here's the funny part. I was challenged to write 25 things about myself. These are probably all things that you already know, so I won't list them, but of course I made it funny because, fuck, I just can't help it. I'm hilarious.

And somebody said "You should have a blog!!"