Re-Emerging Into the Universe With Social Networks

I am finding the world of social networks to be rather interesting. I thought this would be a very solitary time in my life, to be honest. Not lonely, but alone. I don't know if that makes much sense, but in my head it does. I mean, not to get all pathethic, but I really expected to be "that woman in the house with 12 dogs" people would talk about and wonder what her story is. I was prepared for it. I accepted it, and was almost happy about it. Almost. :-)

Any-hoo...

A friend of mine sent me a request to join Facebook, something I thought was for the teeny-boppers. I've reconnected to friends I had in high school, college and even my grade school. For as many "requests to connect" I've sent out, I've received equal amounts of "Remember me?" postings. It's really been quite wonderful to catch up with people. I'm not a person that generally would entertain going to a high school reunion...EVER...so this way to say hello and talk to people I remember fondly has been a real hoot!


There's also a professional network site which I've been a member of for years. It's called LinkedIn. According to its About Us section, LinkedIn is an online network of more than 25 million experienced professionals from around the world, representing 150 industries. It's terrific for expanding your professional connections and opportunities. (Plaxo Pulse is, too, by the way.) When you register, you post your work experience and education on-line, and then it's smart enough to send you a list of "People You Might Know."

As per each week, I sign onto LinkedIn, and it gives me this list. This particular time around, they gave me a person I actually did know from college. I met him when I was a freshman at college; he was dating a good friend of mine from high school, and I briefly dated his roommate. As is typical, we all went our separate ways. Generally speaking, when I request to connect in LinkedIn with professional contacts who were also friends, the response I get is an Accept and a simple "Hello! How are you?" comment and that's about the end of it, and vice versa when people connect to me. So, I was pleasantly surprised when this contact said "Hello! How are you?" and then proceeded to send me a detailed e-mail on the events of his life. I caught him up on what's been new (you know, for the past 15 years), and then followed up with an Instant Message thanking him for sending me such a nice e-mail. We wound up continuing the conversation on IM for about an hour and a half. As much as I like IM, I'm a listener, so not being able to read a person's body language or facial responses in response to what they are saying doesn't always give me enough information.

So...I was brave. I asked this person if they'd like to meet me after work and get caught up. I thought of him as a friend then, and it appears 15 years didn't change that opinion.

We met, had drinks and dinner, and wound up talking for five and a half hours. Over the course of two weeks, we've had more conversations, more dinner, and more laughter than either one of us has had in a while.

It's...nice...in a very "huh? what just happened?" kind of way.

While I may never see the majority of the people to whom I've reconnected, it's interesting that when people post comments and messages, it's still in their voices that I remember from many years ago.