But then things started to get confusing. First, random people that I’d never met wanted to be my friend for no apparent reason. No worries, that’s what happens at a bar, right? I either accepted or rejected these requests based on my mood, and a rough estimation of whether or not I liked the potential friends, based on a quick perusal of their profiles. Of course, none of these people ever crossed into the category of actual friends—the kind of friend not labeled with “ ”. I never socialized with any of them in real life. But it was nice to think that I was so popular.
Confusing was one thing, but soon things started to get really weird. My family started joining Facebook. First, it was a few cousins my age. Okay, predictable. They joined Facebook just like I did, and it was only natural that we should connect via this new medium. Then it was my cousins’ parents. Then it was my parents, and alarms started ringing.
It wasn’t that there was anything that could incriminate me on Facebook, or that I was doing embarrassing, outlandish things in my bar, but I couldn’t get over the fact that my family was coming into the bar to hang out with my friends and me. It’s our bar! This is for young people, what are you doing here?! Just because you can shoot a Jäger bomb, or play Beirut with me and my friends, doesn’t mean that you should. Don’t you want to sip martinis at your own bar next door?
Recently something even more bizarre has happened. My adult friends, people I know through work or through cycling, or through my various other activities (both of them), have become my “friends.” Why is this odd? These are people who have kids. Kids many years younger than me, but kids nonetheless. Even though I interact with everyone socially, even though I consider them friends, and have never thought twice about joining them for dinner or a beer, we still meet at their bar. And now here they are coming into mine. [I know who this is addressing.—Ed.]
I know I’m being old-fashioned in my desire to keep adults out of my life. I know I should embrace this brave new world of interconnectivity and be thankful that literally everyone I know is in the same cyber bar. But a part of me wishes that my friends and I still had our own bar to go hang out in, the kind that plays obnoxious music that adults don’t like.
But, as long as we’re all there, if you see me at the bar, come over and say hello.
Photo courtesy of reCrunch
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