Will You be My Friend? Click Confirm or Ignore.

Lately I’ve been receiving friend requests on Facebook from high school peers.  For those I barely talked to, it makes me wonder what their reasoning is behind the request.  Do they want to rack up as many friends as possible and we were somewhat associated so it counts?  Did we have similar classes?  Were we in similar after school activities or have many mutual friends?  Apparently they remember who I am, or better yet, who I was and it made some impact for them to feel we are destined to stay linked on an internet social network.

Then I got to thinking about high school and where my associations or actual friends came from.  Majority of the people I became friends with were the ones I sat near in class or from my town due to bus rides.  Branching down to the ones I sat near in class; always seated near the same people class after class and it wasn’t by choice.  Every class we had, the teachers placed us in alphabetical order.  So, everyone I got to know had a last name that ended in ‘M’ through ‘Z’ and not many of the earlier letters.  The varieties come from friends through friends or one of the many after school activities of which I was a part.  High school was great and I had plenty of fun, with and without the typical drama, but not very many of these peers stayed my friend up until this moment of my life.

Putting that all together, I have to wonder do I accept them as my “friend” or do I pass it on because we haven’t talked since graduation day (which is at it’s 10 year mark this spring).  If I ignore it, will they be offended and go off in a rant about how they didn’t like me in high school?  Oh well.  I don’t do childish anymore.  When I do accept, I appreciate the message that follows (if it does) asking how my life has been for the years absent of speaking.  I believe this shows a reason for making the link or keeping a connection.  I find it hard to stay “friends” with the ones that continue to keep their reserve.  Am I being realistic about this?  Who knows, but I don’t feel like judging something off of an internet social network.  I think I just find it interesting how people are brought back together in order to do exactly what they were doing prior to these sites, not communicating.

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