“I Saw on Facebook that…”

A couple weekends ago, I reluctantly attended my 10 year high school reunion. I figured, what’s the point? I know everything about everyone (thanks to Facebook), and the people I want to see, I see or talk to on a regular basis.

Facebook has totally changed how we connect and keep up with one another. How many of your Facebook friends are really your “IRL” (in real life) friends? How many times have you seen one of your Facebook friends in public and didn’t talk to them to avoid any awkwardness? I’ve done it.

I thought it would be really awkward going to a reunion knowing what everyone has been up to, how many kids they have, where they were living, etc. What was the point of conversation if we already knew everything?

I was wrong.

Facebook was, surprisingly, a conversation starter and made the anticipated awkwardness of a 10 year high school reunion less awkward. It was easy to say, “Your baby is so cute. How old is she?”, or “Congrats on the marriage! How was the honeymoon?”, or “I love the cakes you’ve decorated, where did you learn how to do that?”

We all take part in our fair share of Facebook stalking, right? (Don’t lie…you know you’ve done it. I have.) But in reality, it’s not really stalking if you opened up that line of communication by accepting the friend request. Apparently, no one else at the reunion thought it was weird to know so much about each other without having actually talked face to face in 10 years.

Needless to say, my nerves settled after the first interaction I had with someone as they said “I saw on Facebook that…” My initial reaction wasn’t “Stalker!” as I thought it might be. In fact, it wasn’t weird at all. I found myself starting a lot of my sentences the same way.

If you think about it, it really isn’t weird at all. I put up pictures and updates on Facebook and other social networks, because I want the people I’m friends with to see them.

All in all, I was very surprised by how Facebook played a huge role in my reunion experience. I’m actually a little grateful. If I really think about it, Facebook helped make the conversations a little more efficient – cutting out all the initial catch up questions and getting straight to the meat of reconnecting in a meaningful way.

I’m looking forward to the next reunion. I wonder if Facebook will still be around for that or if my high school classmates and I will be connected to each other on a different platform. Either way, I know I’ll be leveraging it again.

High school friends and me at the Van Buren High School 10 year reunion.

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