Got 'friended' on Facebook by my very very oldest friend, from first grade, the other day. We've stayed vaguely in touch - well, not really, but her mother and my mother live around the corner from each other so they've kept us up to date on what goes on in each other's lives. But we've not seen each other regularly.
And browsing her profile I noticed she was chatting with someone else... someone who was my very bestest ever friend in ninth grade, whom I haven't seen since... um... ninth grade? So we friended each other too. Odd how small the world is getting. And on Facebook, at least, my worlds are merging. Family, friends from school, friends from work, friends from all the different places I've lived ... all coming together.
Assuming this is happening to other people, not just me, it's an interesting convergence that this is bringing about. Normally, we all maintain separate personas for different situations. A persona for work, a persona for school, for socializing. Different personas that we have held at different phases in our lives. It's not intentional dissembling - well, not normally- it's simply a natural human phenomenon of acting and reacting differently in different situations and different relationships.
Now I have personas from over thirty years, four states, a half dozen employers, all in one place at one time. I'm ego-centric enough to wonder what they think - how have I changed? How am I different than they remember or expect? And the question none of us can answer, of course - are those differences due to time, or environment?
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