Honey’s Greatest Hits: Facebook Edition

So I’ve dated my share of crazy guys, but lately I’ve been experiencing a blast from the past that was somewhat unexpected.

My personal Facebook account has been a flurry of activity, partly because I finally gave up on MySpace (even though it’s how Jake and I met and how I fell in love with blogging) and partly because I finally had to relax my privacy restrictions so that a close friend who’s an actor and will be a regular on the soon-to-premier Stargate: Universe could find me (he can’t relax the privacy restrictions on his personal profile for obvious reasons). 

So I’ve been awash in the “omg I haven’t talked to you in years!” mentality, though as we all know you friend someone, check out their page, maybe send them one “wow, great to hear from you” e-mail, and then never talk to them again except to leave comments on their status updates.  No one really e-mails on there, do they?

In any case, I was recently friended (or maybe I sent him the request after his name popped up on the “you have x number of mutual friends, do you know this person?” sidebar) by a guy I dated the summer between when I graduated from high school and when I started college.  So, to clarify: we dated for like, 3 months, like, 11 years ago.  I moved away right away for college and he (who was a couple years older than me) was in my hometown for community college and then transferred to a state university several hours away from where I was.  I hadn’t talked to, or even thought about him, in years.

He’s married now, still lives in our hometown (I guess he moved back after college), and lists his favorite book as the bible (this isn’t surprising, I went to Baptist youth group with him that summer because I was still idealistic enough to believe in god back in those days).  So, not much in common.  I left a comment on his page that he should post more photos of himself and his wife so people can see what he’s up to.  He left a comment on my page wishing me a happy birthday.

A few days go by.

I get an e-mail from him:

so seriously…you should have been so excited to find me that you wrote right away…and how that you haven’t i am just a tad heartbroken…here’s to hoping you care

Um, wtf? So I respond that I’m not supposed to Facebook at work and had then spent the Labor Day weekend at a friend’s house and didn’t have internet – all of which, coincidentally, is true.  Incidentally, to this story at least, my friends unanimously voted Jake Best Boyfriend Ever – he was the only dude they invited.

Now this ex has e-mailed me 3 or 4 more times, comments on every status update I send out, and wants my phone number so we can catch up because “i just stink at focusing enough to respond to everything.”  Which seems a little ironic given how much focus he has when responding to my lack of attention, but then I thought, hey, maybe he just got on FB and has only 15 friends and I’m reading way too much into this.  Lo and behold, however, I went to his page and he has 350 or so friends.

In retrospect, this was a guy who consistently (persistently?) wrote me dozens and dozens of terrible poems when we were dating, all with aa bb rhyme schemes (which I was taught in my BA and MA – both in creative writing – is barely a poem at all).  And my rather vague memories of him are that he was pretty needy, especially after we stopped dating when I moved away.  But seriously?!  Or does he just have a job where it’s okay to be on Facebook all day?

What’s your experience been finding old boyfriends/girlfriends on social networking sites?  Leave a comment below, and then enjoy these fine posts:

• Online Dating: Honey’s Greatest Hits
• How to Spot a Fake Match.com Profile
• Making the First Move
• Cool Email Game + Date Setup With Kitty