un-friended

It's been a good 6 months since I've written, I guess that highlights the Lazy in 'Lazy Overachiever', eh? Not much has has happened except that my work took off at the speed of light, leaving me to run after it all hours of the day, every day of the week. Things have settled down over the last couple of months, thankfully, and I am working at balancing a personal life with my career so my friends who have written me off will once again start asking if I actually want to leave the house... ever.

One thing that has kept me sane is Facebook - or more specifically satisfied the voyeur in me. I get to read the status updates and view the photos that my 412 "friends" post. Do I really have 412 friends you ask? No. these days I hardly feel like i have any since most are either long distance or expanding their families. I would say that all of the local people I have accepted or sent friend requests to are definitely friendly acquaintances at the least. There is another contingent though of "friends" from my high school nearly all of whom I have never spoken to in the 18 years since I have left. I am fascinated by these folk though. It's oftentimes such a mystery, too, as to who they even are! You have a married name and a profile photo of children with no parent. Who are you?!? Why are you testing my memory in such a way that makes my head hurt? After a fair amount of sleuthing i can usually figure it out - or I ask another friend who may know. There are only 2 people I never figured out. Then the question remains - was I friends with you in high school? Did I like you? Did you torture me? Were you a raging bitch to me? Did I want to run you over? I have actually gotten friend invites from people who made my life miserable in high school. Why be my "friend" now 18 years later? Is this some sort of new popularity contest I should know about? I actually went through the other day and unfriended at least 10 people who no longer met the facebook definition of friend - whatever that means. I hate to have too many of anything - clothes, stuff, friends. I like to keep it as efficient as possible! I am a minimalist after all.

So then one of these new-found high school friends moved to San Francisco, so we got in touch and went out for some wine 19 years later. I don't think I had ever spoken to him in high school - really. He was a grade ahead and really popular and hot. He probably smiled at me once unknowingly and that was about it. So it was really very fun catching up - he agreed he wasn't sure we had ever spoken, but that he remembered me in some sports jersey. He is surprisingly unmarried as the lion share of people from my high school are long since married with kids. I would say maybe 5 of us are not - out of 100+ people. The funny thing was he was asking why I was single and I was saying I hadn't met anyone I was interested in - the usual banter. I explained that having been a math major with a degree in computer science is really not much of a turn-on and that owning a house usually chases them away completely. He was kind to say that those should be turn-ons and men should like strong, successful, smart women... how those guys are *clearly* the 'wrong guys'. Easy enough to say - of course it turns out that he is dating a 24 year old girl! Hey, 38 year old guy, how about the strong, successful, smart women?! He's like eh, no thanks.