Facing Up
McGahey, Genevieve
Facing Up GENEVIEVE MCGAHEY At the end of ninth grade, I wandered the halls of my school halfheartedly gathering signatures in my yearbook. Some girls were intent on having everyone in the class...
...Such dynamics apply now to Facebook...
...The superficial aspects of Facebook have led some of my friends to deactivate their accounts, either temporarily or permanently...
...I nodded...
...Still, I refused to cave...
...She is currently a junior at Swarthmore College and a history major/music minor in the honors program...
...Recently I saw a girl with whom I was Facebook friends, in the restroom of a movie theater...
...Before getting to college, a friend of mine had a protracted online correspondence via Facebook chat with a boy she thought was going to be the love of her life...
...She felt removed, both from friends at home as well as from new friends in college, who used Facebook to organize events and parties...
...All of them thought our lack of cyber contact was more than strange...
...The waiting made what we had and didn't have more authentic...
...My school was small enough that everyone knew each other (at least superficially), but I did not relish having all these near strangers writing things in my book such as, "Have a gr8 summer...
...The blame goes deeper...
...I was involved with a guy for close to two months last year...
...While I was out to dinner with her, a friend of mine from high school, now a junior in college, recognized someone she barely knew...
...So many of her friends complained that they couldn't write on her wall that she reactivated her full account...
...I loved looking at your pictures...
...As it turned out, our relationship did not last, and a few months after things ended, I did friend him...
...I was concerned by the assumption that everything important in our lives was going to end up on Facebook, that anyone and everyone in my social network was going to be able to track the development of our relationship...
...Brian and Zoe are in a relationship" pops up on my newsfeed...
...Figuring out who your real friends are has always been part of growing up...
...Whatever happens on Facebook will never be as important as what happens in real life...
...Being in a relationship now seems to require a public announcement and recognition by your social network...
...But the availability of Facebook as a semipermanent mirror has not prevented my generation from understanding superficiality or irony when it comes to relationships...
...During that time, we weren't friends on Facebook...
...I consider ours to be a deep and important friendship...
...Facebook can be terrifying in that it allows us to judge people before we have really met them...
...The romance fizzled when they actually met, and she discovered him to be shallow and insecure...
...My friends were stunned "You've been seeing each other for that long and you're still not friends...
...I removed her from my friends list that night...
...Despite that, I knew where she went to college and had seen some of her pictures pop up on my home page...
...A less radical move—one I subscribe to—is clearing out your friend list, which essentially consists of "de-friending" people and removing their access to your page as well as your access to theirs...
...It gives us the illusion that we really know them because we now know that they took a trip to Germany in high school and really, really like The Godfather...
...When I finally got her on the phone, we talked for an hour...
...My best friend and I, comparing notes, soon discovered that "Never change" was the most popular inscription from people we barely knew...
...She had been in Nicaragua working on community development projects outside of Matagalpa, while I had been in Florence and then at home...
...I wanted us to get to know each other without my friends (and acquaintances) watching...
...On the other hand, I am thankful that my (now) good friend in college was kind enough to overlook certain things I said on her wall when we were first getting to know each other in the summer before our first year...
...Looking back at those early exchanges, I see many stray "hahas" and "lols" scattered through statements that aren't very funny...
...It is possible, for instance, to look at things that you wrote on someone's wall as far back as seventh grade (or even earlier, depending on when you joined...
...I think that everyone in my generation who uses Facebook has moments of being overwhelmed by it while realizing how central it is to the way we approach friendships and relationships...
...In the case of Brian and Zoe, what popped up on my newsfeed a few months later was, "Brian is now single...
...Still, I believe we have not lost our capacity to be surprised by people...
...Perhaps this requirement is part of the increased ambiguity among us when it comes to romantic relationships...
...They had spent time together at one point, or at least had been at the same parties, but now they never spoke...
...Still, I was glad I had waited...
...I think she meant that, too...
...they were beautiful...
...One friend deactivated her account for months before realizing that she had isolated herself in a way that hurt her...
...We met at college during my first year and since then have been close friends...
...I don't have any trouble recognizing the insincerity of someone to whom I haven't spoken for two years writing, "OMG your picture is cutee when do you get home let's hang out!xo...
...I think he was one of them...
...So when I commented on her Facebook page: "I CAN CALL YOU IN TWO DAYS...
...We saw and recognized each other, but in that moment, I dropped my eyes, pretended I hadn't seen her...
...i miss you so much, baby girl," I really meant it...
...Yet we managed to discover a mutual love of music and lay the foundation for a great friendship...
...But we didn't mean it—we did want them to change...
...And, when the conversation turned to my travels, she said, "How was Florence...
...You should just friend him," she counseled...
...I have visited her home in Vancouver and she has visited mine in D.C...
...In other words, once it's on Facebook, it's official...
...It is the same kind of falseness we see in the "friends" our parents greet with hugs and fake smiles in the grocery store or at dinner parties and who, like a lot of our "friends," are often nowhere to be found during a crisis...
...Genevieve McGahey was born in 1990, in New York City...
...So we started writing "Never change" in their yearbooks...
...Another Facebook casualty...
...What is different is that such "fake" or "teenage" behavior is on display for the entire world to see and judge...
...Once we are friends with people on the site, we can see their favorite books and movies, how many friends they have, who writes on their wall, pictures of them from years back...
...Putting something like that on Facebook and giving everyone you know the ability to gawk at that information must mean that the relationship is serious, that the commitment is unwavering...
...I think not...
...She gradually returned to Facebook with a deactivated wall, meaning she only used it to RSVP to events and messages...
...We had gone to high school together, but I couldn't remember a single conversation with her...
...Facebook simply alters the landscape...
...my roommate asked...
...The fact that, thanks to Facebook, we could be in each other's lives, however superficially, for the summer we were apart was incredible...
...Nvr change...
...A couple of weeks ago, I got a friend on the phone after two long months of not being able to speak to her...
...She was standing in line while I was washing my hands...
...She is one of the most loyal and supportive people I have ever met...
...At the same time, my friends and I know when we have the real deal...
...At the same time this fading privacy makes us more and more reluctant to make all-out commitments...
...I surveyed a few other friends...
...The pressure of trying to represent myself to this still unknown other person was difficult...
...Some girls were intent on having everyone in the class sign theirs and would quickly corner you, waving brightly colored pens in your face...
...Many people now leave their relationship status permanently blank...
...I searched recently and unearthed plenty of mortifying exchanges with friends, acquaintances, and crushes...
...I put a lot of people on limited profile recently [on Facebook]," she said, as we walked hurriedly by his table to avoid being recognized...
Vol. 58 • January 2011 • No. 1
