Bo Knows
Bo Pisko just made me his friend on Facebook. The thing is, Bo Pisko and I were never friends in real life. As far as I recall, all that Bo Pisko and I ever had in common was two years of Madame Cauley’s high school French class. We didn’t sit next to each other or harbor a secret crush for each other or work together on any of Mme. Cauley’s infamous skits. (Aujourd’hui, mes invitees sont deux filles qui ont rencontre les etrangers d’une autre monde!) We were roughly the same level of unpopular, I guess. I think he was friends with some of my friends.I am a newcomer to the world of social networking. I don’t know why I joined up. I don’t have an internet connection at home and I don’t have a lot of time to kill at work and I’m not looking for new friends. I’m certainly not looking for new “friends.” And I’m still in touch with most of the people who were ever a big part of my life in a positive way. I make calls and send emails and even write real on-paper letters all the time, so I’m not generally sitting around wondering What ever happened to so-and-so?
“Getting back in touch” with people I don’t wonder about was interesting for approximately five minutes. I was only planning on connecting with my actual, current friends, but I quickly found a few folks I was curious about – girls I went to summercamp with when I was fifteen, teachers from the Costa Rican town I lived in before grad school. But soon I was looking at the friends of my friends – looking, mostly, at where people ended up, and at how all the Jewish girls I went to high school with now have hyphenated Jewish surnames. Rosen-Goldberg, Liebowitz-Stein.
And I had a few “huh” moments, like, Huh! That girl married that guy! And Huh! That girl lives in Mexico! And then I felt pretty much done with social networking.
But now people are finding me.
First it was the guy from my freshman floor, the one whom I hooked up with but neither of us told anyone, and now he’s an artist in New York, and married. Then it was the boy from my international student group in Amsterdam, whom I haven’t spoken with since I left the Netherlands. And now Bo Pisko.
It’s kind of neat, I guess, to feel attached to this thready net of people out there in the world. It makes me think of an essay I was reading recently by an Indian woman who thought she was ambivalent about having children, but realized she was just ambivalent about having children in America, where people are so isolated. She moved back to India in order to raise her children in a place where they could feel connected – in a place where, if they traveled to a faraway city, they would still be welcome in the home of someone who knew someone they once knew.
I like the idea of knowing people in lots of different places, even if I don’t know them well. I like that I can flip through the photo rolodex to find someone who might be able to tell me about acupuncture or Nebraska. And, I admit, I like seeing what’s become of people I once knew, even if I only ever knew them a little, because seeing what people make with themselves is one of the pleasures of knowing people at all.
So for the moment, at least, I’m leaving my online shop open. I’m calling Bo Pisko my friend. He was a pretty nice guy, as I remember. Maybe if you’re ever going to Virginia, you can tell him you know me, and you can stay with him.
posted by tortaluga @ 11:58 AM
4 Comments:
Sometimes I wonder if I WAS great friends with Bo Pisko but I just sort of forget. After all, I have a terrible long term memory.
In any case I'm glad you also connected with the friend you did that french skit with.
-la
If I ever join Facebook, we should be "friends". Maybe someday if I move to Portland and stop being an anonymous blog commenter, we can be friends.
I found my senior year book at home and looked up some folks from school on facebook this weekend. Ended up finding him on facebook's IM and meeting him for a drink. Good stuff.
eeeeeeeeennnnnnnggggggggeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeennnnnnggggghhhhhhaaaaaaeeeeeennnnngh.......
This is the sound of me jonesing for a new blog post from you.
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