Mmmmmmhhhhhmmmm

Facebook is the strangest thing to me. First, I am amazed by the number of people who use it. People seem to practically live on the site because no matter what time of the day or night I log in the green button is by their name, should I wish to chat. I wonder if they have lives away from their phone or computer.

Second, I am awed by the people who use it for all the varied reasons- to get ideas out, to share photos, to connect with friends and family, and to promote business. For the life of me, I can't figure out why it is so popular because as I said before, it doesn't seem to be very user friendly and most of what people get hyped up about is very meaningless.

The third thing that bothers me is the number of people I barely know who want to be 'friends'. A woman I don't think I've spoken to since fourth grade sent me a friend request. I cannot figure out why. Sometimes I understand the reasoning behind requests- my cousins instantly accept and they should because we're family. A man I don't know very well friended me and I understand that because he used to have a crush on me. But the others? Is it just because we went to the same school? Are people remembering better times than me, maybe remembering what they wish had happened instead of what actually occurred?

For the most part, I've been accepting requests. I don't have to talk to anybody, in most cases it won't hurt, and if they get out of line, there's always the unfriend button.

Then Mandy sent me a friend request. We used to be friends. We were very close. The problem was, she's a liar.

I think the problem arose from a couple of things. First, she was an Army brat, forever moving to a new place. Maybe she started telling lies to sound cooler than she was. Her new friends wouldn't know what her life had been like and if she said she had a boyfriend then nobody would know she'd never been on a date in her life. Then her parents divorced so maybe she lied about the parts that weren't too great. You really wouldn't know she was lying unless you had been there with her.

She lied about all kinds of things. I guess most of it was for attention. One day she called me and was unusually quiet. I kept asking what was wrong and finally she said her brother's friend sexually assaulted her. She told me a little about it, then her mother came home and she shut up. I begged her to tell her mom. The next day, Mandy had a grand story about her mother taking her to the police station, they asked all sorts of questions, and she had to be photographed for 'evidence' but the photographer was out of town so she was supposed to wait until the next day and she couldn't shower or wear clothes to bed or sleep on sheets because fingerprints might rub off.

All that is a lie. That's not how rapes are handled. Nobody is photographed unless they have been badly beaten or stabbed and then the hospital would do it for medical records. The police department has several photographers and they would photograph the crime scene, not the victim unless the victim was dead. They don't send people home until they've been thoroughly questioned. And her mother never said one word about any of it so I just can't believe she continued to go to work every day leaving her teen aged daughter home alone and she never changed the locks, arranged for Mandy to stay with a friend, or took her to counseling.

Mandy lied about everything. Eventually I stopped talking to her because I caught her in lie after lie after lie. Most of them were things that were not worth lying about. I just didn't want to associate with her anymore because I didn't want to hear another stupid lie.

On a few occasions since high school, I've bumped into Mandy. She seems friendly at first. She still wants to be friends. She'll start catching me up on her life and it won't be long, between a few hours and two days, I'll trip over one of her lies. Sometimes she tells me something that directly contradicts what she said before, and sometimes I'll mention to another person that I ran into her and that person will ask where I got my misinformation from. This always happens. Then I can't speak to her again, and I can't believe I fell for yet another lie. Sometimes I will think everything is fine and then Mandy will abruptly stop calling. Gradually I realize she has lied about something and she thinks I'm about to catch her or she's staying away before I blurb out truth/lie to the wrong people. And then I wonder, if she lies this much about herself, what does she say about every one else?