Facebook is depressing sometimes

[zoe_vaughn]

A bunch of my high school friends have tracked me down using facebook, and I find that most of them are very, very different than I or my current friends are. And not surprisingly, the big difference seems to be education

Comments

[edge_of_within]

To give an opposite spectrum example, because I exist:

I didn't go to college.
While I don't make as much as most college-friends do, I make an ok amount to do what I want with and live alone.

I am debt free. I am unmarried and kid-free by choice (not a life choice, I just don't want them right now).

I'm 30, and fairly positive that what I'm living right now is the highlight of my life - every year has been better than the last.
I'm sure at some point this feeling will end, but well, hasn't yet.

I don't mean to disagree with you, because I see the same, and agree.

[zoe_vaughn]

True, but you decided to _do_ something. Education comes in many forms. While it's usually college, it can be many things. You choose not to settle for something because it was there and easy. I find a lot of folks need a kick in the ass not to settle, and often college is the kicker. It's gives them a reason to keep learning and striving to figure out what they really want.

I think the "highlight" of your life shouldn't end... the definition just changes. I never want to feel like it's all over. Fuck that. I want to be happy and excited with whatever I am plunging into next.

[isis_page]

Facebook is really random that way. I've met some peeps that I wish I had not reconnected with- and then a bunch that I have. I'm having a very amusing conversation with two from 7th grade today! :)

[ajdub]

if you think that's depressing, you should definitely stay away from myspace...

as far as late teens early 20s being the highlight of one's life, i resemble that remark!

but then again, i had a pretty unusual late teens early 20s.

adult life kinda sucks if you ask me. most all your friends settle down into boring coupledom, move into new life phases where they focus on their kids or find other reasons to not be around so much. the prospect of having to take care of your parents in old age and/or them not being around anymore becomes real... the glowing feeling of "i can be anything i want" fades to a question of whether or not "success" has been achieved.

but then again, i'm in a special world now, where i'm surrounded by kids who are basking in the wonderfully promising glow that is early adulthood, so perhaps i'm oversensitive.

[zoe_vaughn]

Um, yeah... I think going back to school is hard for just that reason. When I went back, it was with all older farts like me! And we all felt on the up-an-up, so it's not just an age thing. It's a mind thing - are you going up or down? Are you happy with where you are? The things that others are focusing on - family and what have you - may be exactely what they want. I think the big difference is are you doing that because it's right for you, or because you got trapped in it?

[ajdub]

well that's the interesting thing, people often say things to me like "oh it must be great to go back to school and be young again." in reality, i think removing myself from my peer group and sticking myself into the world i'm in now has aged me more than anything i've done before

[malderor]

Yeah, I've tended to ignore most of the "friend requests" from people from my high school. A few of them, (the ones I was actually friends with back then), I've caught up with, and it's been fine. But do I really need to be "friends" with some Conservative Christian dipsh!t who never got it together to leave our hometown? I think not. People I don't remember at all have tried to "friend" me, just because we attended the same school 20 years ago? Phhthp.

I ignore people fairly frequently, and I ignore every single "application". But I'm curmudgeonly like that. I _do_ like the twitter-esque updates people post all day though.

Steve