Social Networking Baffles Me

Many friends I have been talking to have told me they use Facebook. I never got into myspace or facebook or whatever other social networking sites are out there. But I know several friends do.

I have stayed away for two reasons.
1: I like to stay incognito on the internet if possible due to you know who and you know why.
2: I always believed those sites were for younger people.

The first reason will always be there. But after finding out many friends my age use it I began to wonder.

So a girlfriend who uses facebook a lot had given me her login. (Yes she is a good friend and really trusts me.) I browsed around for a while. This is what baffles me.

I am astounded by the amount of people you can reconnect with. I mean she has many friends we went to school with in her list. Then if you click on them, you can link to other peoples pages. I am sure you all know how this works so sorry. But what is so amazing is the people these other people are 'friends' with.

Call me a snob, that is fine, but I know for a fact that many of these folks were NOT friends with many of their facebook friends. I mean I would go so far as to say that they didn't know many of these people existed. And to be brutally honest I didn't even know a few who were linked to friends I had growing up and I graduated with all these folks. I tell you there were only 170 that graduated in my class.

Oh and most of them who barely knew each other are somehow married or related to one another all of the sudden. And they may have been from different graduating classes. So incestuous.

So my questions are these......
Is Facebook like the grown up version of friendship bracelets or friendship pins? You don't care who you received them from as long as you have the most?

Or have some of my 'friends' from high school actually grown up and realized not everyone has to be popular to be cool?

Either way, WEIRD knowing most of my friends from high school have married other friends from high school. It seems a bit odd that they have stayed so close.

I do have to say that my girlfriend who allowed me access was in fact someone who was friends with everyone. So she legitimately has her friends. Good for her.

Oh well....another thing that makes me NOT cool. What's new?