The white whale
Sorry, it’s another Facebook post. So if you’re one of those people who aren’t on Facebook, think of the things I could have written about, like A-Rod (so orange! what’s up with that?). But I’ve snagged my biggest find yet, my college suitemate (later housemate) with whom I lost touch soon after graduation. See, those are the most exciting sightings on there: the person with whom you are the closest and who you haven’t seen in the longest time. It’s easy to find people you’re tight with now (the “are you on Facebook? I should friend you” people) and it’s about as easy to find people you knew a long time ago with whom you would have comfortably lost touch after Middle School (these are the folks you sometimes have to think about for a minute before you accept their friendship, and then you have the a-ha moment, look at their page once, and proceed to re-forget them).
I have a mental list of the people I am desperate to find, people with whom I had a close friendship and saw or spoke to every day. I’m not sure whether it’s the hope of renewing the friendship or just wondering what the hell they have done for the last fifteen years. Probably not the first because I have many excellent friends in the here and now and really, that ship has sailed, hasn’t it? Do I have anything in common with them anymore? Maybe that’s what I’m hoping to find out. But my list, which had been, until recently, three, is down to one and a half. I say this because my suitemate, with whom I lived for the first two years of college, is still in touch with suitemate #2 and has given me news of her. She may join Facebook but it’s OK if she doesn’t, I suppose. We had a fourth housemate but she is the one college friend with whom I have maintained a steady friendship, so she’s not on the list.
Still, there is something bizarre about having a stilted e-mail exchange with someone with whom you once had fights about who would wash the dishes, took long bus rides with to distant malls, danced with to Depeche Mode songs. Someone who gave you haircuts and borrowed your clothes and called you nicknames no one calls you anymore. What do you say to that person all those years later? Apparently, I’m not sure, because I took a break from the labored e-mail to write this post. It’s still easier to blog. I don’t know whether we’ll be actual friends rather than just Mark Zuckerburg Trademark Friends, but when I see her picture now, I am almost disappointed to lose the last image I have of her, sitting across from me at a diner in Baltimore in 1994. Or wearing those high-waisted 80’s jeans with floppy 80’s hair. Don’t ask what I wore.
So, you may wonder, who is the #1, the white whale? I have mentioned her before so maybe you already know. It’s my high school BFF (one of two) and apparently, she has fallen off the face of the earth. But one thing I know to be true: unless she’s now living on another planet, she will eventually join Facebook.
For personal reasons… (and not on Napster, or on the album anymore).
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