I jumped on the Facebook wagon gently, to say the least. I was a new student at Lee University and in a blasted hurry to store the sea of faces around me in some sort of organized system. Facebook was the newest social network (the only social network as far as I knew. I was always more suited to the real life, in your tangible face sort of interaction.) and I succumbed.

There have been numerous times over the past three years that I have regretted that leap, held my cursor over the Delete Profile button, but I never pressed it. Ignored the thing altogether, yes, but delete, no. And I'm glad for it, honestly. I am known for ignoring my Facebook Inbox, my sidebar of requests for all sorts of Very Strange Applications, and I let the Friend Requests pile up until it's more like sorting dirty laundry than it is like Christmas day. I am very good at being a very bad Facebooker.

But. I will say that I have found Facebook to be very, very useful in many ways. People I think of and wonder if they think of me, I find they do! they do! And then, suddenly, I find that I'm actually curious about what the heck the boy I babysat when I was eleven and he was five is up to now that he's a strapping 21 year old college jock. Or the mousy girl from down the road, she's a neonatal nurse now and no more mousy than a lioness in her element.

Occasionally I get a Friend Request (This is, to you non-Facebookers, when someone formally requests to be your friend, regardless of whether you have never met and therefore have no reason to be friends, or whether you are in real life Very Close Chums and Wouldn't Think Of Not Being Friends. You still have to make the formal Friend Request before it's official. It's a sad, sad world.) from someone who thinks they know me, or perhaps really does, but I don't know them. This is embarrassing. For me. And for them. But sometimes it can turn into a good thing.

The ways in which I have found Facebook to be useful are as follows:

I can find out what is going on minute by minute in the faithful status updaters: Susie Jones is trying to suck chocolate chips from her Blizzard through her Dairy Queen straw. Fascinating stuff that.

I can view, tag, untag, comment on, and otherwise enjoy dozens and dozens of flattering and very unflattering photos of people I know. This is fine blackmail. But I would never resort to blackmail. I'm just saying is all.

I can see who everyone considers to be their top friends and keep tabs on my Top Friend Status. (I was on the Top Friend List of nine other Facebookers last time I check. I'm not sure whether this is very popular or very wallflower.)

I can canvass reams of people very quickly to let them know about anything in the world I want to. Pretty much every person I know can know about anything I want them to know within seconds. This is very helpful. Ask any serious Facebooker. They know.

There are more ways I find Facebook helpful, but in case you noticed, this is not an essay toting the glories of Facebook. This is actually my attempt to assure myself that there are good things in the Facebook World. And to tell you that if we are not friends on Facebook then we are just not friends.

Just kidding.
Sort of.