Who hates ya, baby?

Facebook is weird, wild stuff. According to my Heroes Ability application, I can paint the future. According to my TV trivia box, I'm a virtuoso. According to my Superpoke application, I've been "trout slapped" (whatever that means) by my sister. And according to my entourage, I have over 90 friends.

The friend section of facebook is pretty cool. It's helped me reconnect with people I haven't seen, spoken to, or even thought of in 5, 10, 15, 20, sometimes 25 years. I've reconnected with friends who now go by different names, friends who I never thought would remember me, friends from Australia and Canada and all across the USA. I've even reconnected with Richard Capatosto, a friend I haven't seen since JHS whose legendary 7th or 8th grade haiku has been quoted and re-quoted amongst my close friends for almost 20 years:

I see a kitten
I see a lead pipe
Everything is red

I'm finding it pretty exciting when I find someone I haven't seen since before Mr. Belvedere was even a twinkle in some hard-up TV writer's mind or someone sends me a friend request with a note asking what I've been doing since that time I wet my pants in kindergarten, but yesterday I received a friend request that actually gave me a little jolt. It was a request from a girl I knew in elementary school more than 20 years ago. The problem is, I HATED her with a passion on a rope on a stick. This girl made my 4th or 5th or 6th (can't remember exactly which) grade a living hell. You see, this girl was one of those people who found joy in the torturing and tormenting of nice, shy young boys. She made up a nickname for me, one that really didn't have any meaning, but one that stuck and burned nonetheless. By the time most of her friends had taken to calling me this name as if chanting a mantra, I was spending most of my nights crying myself to sleep. Eventually, I fought back. I'd call her a my own made-up meaningless name in retaliation and soon enough, the barbs stopped. But it took me a long time to get over the hurt.

Now this girl who 20+ years ago made me scared to go to school thanks to her arbitrary, yet venomous name-calling, wants to be my friend. She even attached a nice message asking how I've been and extending her well wishes. Hell, by now, she's probably a loving wife and mother and all-around nice person. I honestly didn't know what to do. She probably doesn't even remember what she did and actually, I hadn't thought about it or her in a looooooooooooooong time, but just seeing her name made my stomach twitch anxiously.

In the end, I accepted her friend request. Maybe, as another friend suggested, she's working through a 10-step and needs to make amends. Maybe she just wants to make amends. Maybe she's blocked the events of that grade school year out of her mind or simply, just forgotten them. More likely, she's actually a mature 33-yr-old woman who's genuinely excited to hear from someone she knew as a kid.

Regardless, the important thing and the reason why I accepted her facebookian request for friendship is: I'm no longer that shy, scared little boy. :)