The More Social Network

Today, facebook gave me hope.

Weird, I know. Especially considering I hate facebook. Yes, I have one. Yes, I check it. Yes, I can defend both of those points.

I first created a facebook page in highschool, I think it was senior year. I remember my girlfriend at the time was sitting on the computer one day and asked if I wanted one. I said sure, why not? So she more or less made it for me. I remember her being mildly annoyed that for my profile picture I chose an image of a small baby screaming in a way that made it look as if it were in a fit of homicidal rage with a caption that read “For the Horde!”.

I thought it was funny as hell.

By the summer after my freshman year I had deleted it. Or maybe just deactivated it, because I don’t think facebook ever really deletes a profile.

However, when I started working on my film sophomore year (I go to film school) I needed a way to better contact my crew and cast. Seeing as how they were all my age, they checked facebook way more often then they checked their email, so I turned mine back on and have had it ever since.
I try to pretend that I really only use it to stay in touch with people, thought it would be obvious to anyone who checked my web history that I am on it more often than that. It also evident in the size of this disclaimer, which is now running a few paragraphs long.

And all of that is beside the point anyway.

When I was in highschool I hated it. Looking back on highschool, I still hate it. It was absolutely fucking miserable.

I went to school with a girl who, I have to suspect, loathed it much more than I was ever capable of, or could have justifiably done.

We’ll call her Val.

I didn’t know Val very well. If you were to ask me who she hung out with, I couldn’t tell you. And not because I have willingly let so many of my former classmates get lost in the cellar of my mind, but because from as far as I can recall she didn’t hang out with anyone. If you were to line up every person of my graduating class in front of me I’m certain I would be unable to find  anyone who knew her outside of school, considered her a friend, or even knew her outside of being “that girl”.

Val was small. Both short and skinny, which was exemplified by her almost all-black attire. She often did not look up as she walked, and when she did it was just a brief paranoid glance. You’d think she was just making sure that she wasn’t about to bump into anyone, but the terror on her face always made it look as if she was certain that something terrible was about to happen to her.

I never saw Val smile.

I remember hearing her voice only once. However, I cannot recall what she said, or what she sounded like. All I remember is being shocked at what I was hearing. Not from the content of her words, but from the fact that words were coming from her at all.

I recall a few girls that I would describe as cunts anyway saying she was mean or rude. However, I don’t doubt that they only felt this way because Val, unlike the baseball team, didn’t give them the time of day. I remember a few people saying she was extremely intelligent.

From what I heard (which is to say “what I heard in highschool” which is to say “what I heard is most likely bullshit”) she had, a few times, been sent to the office for refusing to speak when a teacher called on her. This may very well be true. The part that very well may not be true is that the school administration felt she was a threat to herself or others.

Highschool students tend to look at a girl like her and assume that she’s the one that will pull a Colombine. So, of course, rumors that there had been a “list” found in her locker, or that she had been seen drawing pictures of dead students circulated. I doubt any of it was based on fact.

Though most of what was said about her was fictitious what I believe to be factual is that she did not enjoy her time spent in highschool, I don’t know how she could have. It seems like all she wanted was to be left alone, and yet something about her was always said.

Today I was about to leave a comment on a friend’s facebook page when I saw her name under his list of friends. I was shocked to see it. Not so much because my friend was facebook friends with her, everyone is facebook friends with everyone, but because I never thought of her as having one. I went to her profile and saw a picture of a beautiful young woman. She is majoring in chemistry at a school with a very reputable science program. She has a boyfriend.

She is smiling in her profile picture.

I was happy to find her page. I did not know her well, or even at all. But it made me happy to think that things can get better. And that is a pretty nice moment in a day for me, because I generally think that everything just turns out  to be like a bucket full of dog vomit.