One of the most interesting things about the Facebook social networking system is that you can traverse the nodes. It works this way. Everyone on Facebook has friends and those friends have more friends. By working your way through friends of friends you can sometimes loop around and find your way back to a familiar cluster, in a manner akin to circling around. Occasionally you’ll go down sidetrails and explore the outworkings of a forest of connections. But that’s tiresome and occasionally you will attempt to jump into a wholly different cluster of people based on a clue, like the fragment of name or perhaps an email address and find a thread back into a world you’d left.
That world could be your high school classmates, people you went to college or grad school with. They could be people you worked with, or shared an activity with at one time or the other. And because bits of those networks still survive, once you find a line back to a cluster from a time past, you run into names that invoke mirth, fear, shame or dread. The past has the power to haunt; to modify the persona we have built in the present with the inconvenient facts of personal history. But nothing, I think, is more perilous than finding the names and pictures of old flames. The mouse hovers ever so tentatively over the “add friend button”. It’s a very strange feeling to be separated by a single click from people who are decades distant. Maybe if you’re wise you’ll navigate to another page.
When Robert Frost wrote the Road Less Traveled, social networking software had not yet been invented. Frost’s poem went:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
But that was then; and now social networking software allows you to haunt the steps of companions whose fellowship you have left. We flit through the meandering paths of the wood and watch how those others have fared, and as those older faces look back on you in Facebook, without even the awareness that they’re being observed, it’s tempting to wonder how much of yourself has traveled with them, and they with you. Maybe Frost was slightly wrong. Maybe the melancholy we feel isn’t the result of musing on the road not taken; it’s the consequence of some part of us having gone down all those trails leaving us wondering who they left behind.
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34 Comments
1. njartist:Do not click on old flames. That way may lie a severe burning.
Jun 1, 2009 - 6:30 am 2. Bill McNutt:Nah – when you click on old flames, the result is usually, “My god he/she’s gotten fat. Thank GOD I got off/was thrown off that bus when I was!”
Bill
Jun 1, 2009 - 6:41 am 3. Richard Aubrey:The reason to take the road not taken is that you won’t wonder later what you missed.
Jun 1, 2009 - 6:45 am 4. Gordon:The road everybody takes is not likely to be interesting, since interesting requires stopping and most people want to keep going. Either interesting got moved, or it was never there.
Agree; don’t do it. It wasn’t Facebook but my HS class will have the 50th reunion this year; I only went to the 10th and have had no interest since.
The committee has set up a website with numerous features–very good actually. I clicked on my HS girlfriend’s name, whom I last saw at age 20 and there was her picture, as she looked in 1959. This was my first ’serious’ girlfriend and my reaction to seeing her, as she looked then, amazed me–it was profound and I still don’t quite understand it. But, as our host said, I ‘hovered’ over the idea of sending her a message, but, finally, did not. I’m content with that but the urge was very strong.
Even thinking about it now brings it back slightly. Here I am, getting old with 9 grandchildren, having this strong emotion. The flame may flicker, and be deeply hidden, but never dies I suppose.
Jun 1, 2009 - 6:48 am 5. Ron Hardin:Frost was mocking poetic seriousness. Today he’d snap a pic of the other road and post it to flickr with a little commentary and forget it.
Jun 1, 2009 - 6:48 am 6. Megaera:I looked up someone with whom I once had a completely apolitical friendship; depressingly, he had morphed into an ultra-liberal version of Dean Wormer and made it clear that he considered my attitudes quite unacceptable. Pity, that — but I suspect that political differences could turn into a huge sticking point in a lot of would-be resurrected relationships. Just a warning, is all.
Jun 1, 2009 - 7:55 am 7. Agoraphobic Plumber:I recently clicked on the add friend button for “The” old flame. The only one I ever truly fell in love with but didn’t marry.
We have spoken exactly once in about 20 years, and that was by coincidence. I HAVE had knowledge of her doings, though, since she and my mother have maintained a friendly relationship over the years.
I consider myself very, very lucky that this seems not to be a bad thing that I did that. Yet. Kids, don’t try this at home. It roils feelings in you that, if you can’t master them, may prove to have very bad consequences in your life.
If I had it to do again, I probably wouldn’t click.
Jun 1, 2009 - 8:17 am 8. Blindman:The peril of Wikipedia is that you find that you are not included. History is like that as it should be. Facebook was designed for college students and it should be left for them.
“Typhoon
After the Leyte Gulf engagement, Third Fleet was confronted with another powerful enemy in mid-December — Typhoon Cobra (also known as “Halsey’s Typhoon”). While conducting operations off the Philippines, the force remained on station rather than avoiding a major storm, which sank three destroyers and inflicted damage on many other ships. Some 800 men were lost, in addition to 146 aircraft. A Navy court of inquiry found that while Halsey had committed an error of judgement in sailing into the typhoon, it stopped short of unambiguously recommending sanction.[10]
In January 1945, Halsey passed command of his fleet to Admiral Spruance (whereupon its designation changed to ‘Fifth Fleet’). Halsey resumed command of Third Fleet in late-May 1945 and retained it until the end of the war. In early June 1945 Halsey again sailed the fleet into the path of a typhoon, and while ships sustained crippling damage, none were lost. Six lives were lost and 75 planes were lost or destroyed, with almost 70 badly damaged. Again a Navy court of inquiry was convened, and it suggested that Halsey be reassigned, but Admiral Nimitz recommended otherwise due to Halsey’s prior service.[10]
He was present when Japan formally surrendered on the deck of his flagship, USS Missouri, on September 2, 1945.” (Wiki.)
I am not sure Captain Ahab would have bothered with social networking. Life in the present should be a white hot flame of searching forward not searching for the unchangeable past.
By the way, Robert Frost looked at life as if he were drinking from a open fire hydrant, not a meandering brook. I doubt he regretted all that much about the road he did not take. He may have in his quieter moments wished he could have been in two places at once just to maximize the journey. Not to change the journey.
In brief, forget the mouse clicks . It is for mice. And men.
Jun 1, 2009 - 8:31 am 9. joe buzz:I have not signed up and doubt I will. I am not very social to start with….besides a road with old flames at the end or along the way is not one that I wish to travel. My lovey wife of 21 years is far from old and burns with an intensity that puts the sun to shame. Yes I am blessed. Networking with her, no time or desire for FaceSpace or MyBook.
Jun 1, 2009 - 9:06 am 10. cjm:you can never go back.
Jun 1, 2009 - 9:17 am 11. Urban B:There are superficial friendships all around, from work, church, or friends of friends. Facebook allows for a wholly new category… the superficial friendship of meaning. The News Feed, or as I call it: the “Insta-Stalk”, allows us to ‘follow’ people with whom we have no actual contact, but did to one degree or another somewhere way back when. We can get birthday wishes from mere acquaintances. (Which I actually like.) Through Facebook, there are fewer and fewer opportunities to wonder, “What ever happened to….” Now, we just log on, and if we really want to know, we can ask. I find this connection to the past delightful.
As far as the central point about the old flame… The eternal question is finally answered. “Can we still be friends?” Well, yes… yes we can.
Jun 1, 2009 - 9:18 am 12. Alvin:Don’t click it. You can’t go home again.
Jun 1, 2009 - 9:41 am 13. C. Parker:Gordon,
Very true; but then there’s also the problem of friending the new flame: much more proximate and so very much more dangerous…
Jun 1, 2009 - 9:56 am 14. joe buzz:Don’t click it. You can’t go home again. Yep Alvin, and you never know witch old friend might release the freakin flying monkeys.
Jun 1, 2009 - 10:05 am 15. John:Technology (ie FB) does not cause the social behavior problems, it simply makes it easier to pursue and thus can pull in those who might otherwise not have gone down that path.
Avoiding those types of things that might lead you to trouble is often a good tactic to win the “battle”, but if you want to win the “war” on such issues, you have to get to the root of the issues … which is not FB, or technology, or whatever else you want to blame your social behavior on.
Its like the Internet and pornography … the internet does not make one look at pornography, but it sure makes it a whole lot easier.
There is certainly merit to avoiding putting oneself in a situation where it will make it easier for one to fall, but we can’t let that fear completely dominate and dictate all our actions less we miss all the other positive outcomes that can come of those situations.
For example, if one is afraid to use the internet because they might get addicted to porn, then they are missing all the positive things the internet brings. The internet isn’t the real problem. Likewise, FB is not the real problem with folks who end up looking up an old flame.
I certainly respect those that know themselves well enough that they will simply avoid a situation because they know they cannot resist the temptations that come with it, but it is also important for us to realize the underlying issue as well and put it into proper perspective and not blame the enabler for the behavior.
Jun 1, 2009 - 10:22 am 16. Marcus Aurelius:I friended an old flame of mine.
I had friended someone who was close to being a flame but did not quite reach that state with me. Then my “old flame” was also in that woman’s network and shortly afterwards I got a friend request. Half the world separates us and so to do our marriages. I accepted. My wife was kinda mad at first but since she is good friend’s with the old-flame’s mother things cooled down.
Yes, there are those on FB who really are friends and those who are not. Just a set of concentric circles with me at the center the inner circle are those presently in my life, the next circle are those I have actually known physically or distant family. Then there are those whom I have a realistic possibility of meeting, and then the last are those celebrities and people I have zero to no chance of meeting — including celebrities & politicians.
I like the idea of tapping back into old networks left behind. High school, college, and my old work.
Jun 1, 2009 - 10:35 am 17. Jrod:Why would anybody want to get in touch with a bunch of people they could not be bothered to keep in touch with in the first place?
The attraction to FB baffles me.
Now everybody, log off and go outside and play. It’s a lovely day!
Jun 1, 2009 - 10:36 am 18. Wizzy:My father looked up an old flame (in the pre-internet days) and it wound up costing him his marriage, a goodly chunk of his relationship with his kids, and ultimately his health (from stress).
There is no small amount of wisdom in letting dead relationships remain dead, rather than hoping to reanimate the corpse and find meaning. What, really, are the odds of something good happening, particularly when you or the flame are in existing relationships?
Jun 1, 2009 - 10:42 am 19. Herb:This place never ceases to surprise me. I have been aware of an OGF who grew up in surprising ways and is prominent in her town. I have from time to time kicked around the idea in my head…
The cooler parts have prevailed thus far.
Ill let it ride until fate take a hand. Its only been 40 Yrs.
Can anybody explain how Our Host can come up with the perfect piece to light up whatever he’s trying to say. saying.
Jun 1, 2009 - 11:34 am 20. joe buzz:John 15, very good comment. What in your opinion is the root cause or trigger that causes folks to habitually view pornography on the internet? Discussing this very same issue with my wife this weekend, she suggested that it may be in part due to the assumption that there is no threat of rejection in the virtual relationship between the viewer and the picture.
Jun 1, 2009 - 11:39 am 21. rob sama:Triaging friends over time is a good thing. There is no good to be had re-igniting old flames, or even old friendships with people you have lost touch with. As Jrod #17 put it, if you couldn’t be bothered in meatspace, then what are you doing in cyberspace?
I opened up a facebook account with a newly minted gmail address and just browsed around a little bit, and decided it was a very creepy place. I prefer my relationships be out in the open. Hence why I prefer blogs or even twitter to something like Facebook, where everything is kept within layers upon layers of secrecy. Factor that is with the temptation of click on the old flame, and truly, NOTHING good can come of it.
Jun 1, 2009 - 11:54 am 22. whiskey:Why is it that old flames burn so strong? After all, few have strong emotions around firsts like say, first exotic foreign food eaten. Why then old flames?
Because human beings evolved to pair-bond through release of sex-driven hormones. The hormones cause powerful emotions to be stored in the brain, at an early age, and remain the most powerful. Powerful enough to be threatening.
The wide social networks, many partners (sexual or otherwise) are a very recent development. Most of human evolutionary history consisted of intense pair bonds at a young age, and a small social network. From an evolutionary standpoint, humans are still adapting to this changing environment.
Jun 1, 2009 - 12:51 pm 23. E. Nigma:What did Satchel Paige say?
“Don’t look back, someone may be gaining on you.”
Wiser words were never spoken.
Don’t look back, it’s over. Let sleeping dogs lie.
Jun 1, 2009 - 12:53 pm 24. Alvin:re 22: Why old flames? Hear Paul Simon: “If you took all the girls I knew when I was single, put em all together for one night, I know they’d never match my sweet imagination, everything looks worse in black and white.”
Jun 1, 2009 - 1:09 pm 25. Lord Acton:Just this past weekend I ran into The “old flame” at our 20th college reunion. Spent 15-20 minutes talking to her at two different events. We were both there with our families. Happy with our lives. Yet when we hugged goodbye I understood why the moth is drawn to the flame!
Jun 1, 2009 - 2:30 pm 26. Marcus Aurelius:Why rekindle lost relationships? Simply because the cost is lower — the same reason many of use the internet to seek out obscure facts & user communities. The Internet & other assorted technology has lowered the cost of communication.
Jun 1, 2009 - 3:37 pm 27. Marcus Aurelius:The big danger of FB is putting up professionally damaging notes. One kinda gets into the rhythm of putting up every little thing going on — including the things one does (and probably should not do) when less than fully sensible.
The wife & I hosted some family for dinner, they left, we went to Goodwill for a customer appreciation night. I was lit up so my wife drove. We got there, she went in and I got out and started walking laps around the parking lot. Yeap — I put that up on FB — worded in a manner to sound worse than what it was. I don’t believe I have suffered any harm from that one, but it led to me to think a lot more about what I put up prior to publishing things.
Jun 1, 2009 - 3:43 pm 28. Mad Fiddler:News Flash!
Rome brought to its knees by binge-drinking Caesar!
Jun 1, 2009 - 4:16 pm 29. Joshua:Jrod, #17: Why would anybody want to get in touch with a bunch of people they could not be bothered to keep in touch with in the first place?
The attraction to FB baffles me.
One word: convenience.
Based on my own experience, it seems to me a big reason we “could not be bothered to keep in touch with” these people in the first place is because it was such a huge hassle. So damn many addresses (snail-mail and e-mail), URLs, phone numbers etc. to keep track of, so damn little time. Facebook does to that hurdle pretty much what Nero does to Vulcan in the new Star Trek movie (I presume that if you haven’t already seen it, you don’t care to anyway so spoilage is irrelevant), by providing one single place to easily find and contact dozens if not hundreds of people.
Jun 1, 2009 - 4:46 pm 30. Marcus Aurelius:Josh really fleshes out what I am getting at.
One of the interesting coincidences I have run into is I befriended my wife’s nephew who is from Manila but lives & works in North Carolina. I was browsing his friends list and found a familiar name.
The name was one of my online UAE buddies (at the time it was via bulletin board) still in Dubai. Apparently my UAE buddy (whom I had managed to keep contact with for a couple of years after leaving the UAE) was a MNL classmate of our nephew.
FB and similar online social applications really centralize the management of friendship. I am not as active with LinkedIN but check it out from time to time.
Part of the FB appeal too is the superficial “friendship” one can claim with celebs. However, I don’t believe most celebs are at all involved with their facebook pages. However, I do believe the author/owner of this forum does check out FB every now and then.
Jun 1, 2009 - 5:11 pm 31. DJS:I like facebook personally. It is nice to catch up with people you have not seen or heard from. Granted it is superficial, but still, it answers the question of “whatever happened to”. I’ve not clicked on any old flames, but mainly out of fear of the silence of non-acceptance. But if one of them were to find me I would accept. Why? Because the grass is not greener on the other side.
Jun 1, 2009 - 6:53 pm 32. bogie wheel:Even thinking about it now brings it back slightly. Here I am, getting old with 9 grandchildren, having this strong emotion. The flame may flicker, and be deeply hidden, but never dies I suppose.
Wretchard is awfully fond of “Dover Beach,” as am I, but there’s another poem by Matthew Arnold which I also think very highly of. It’s called “The Buried Life.”
An excerpt:
But often, in the world’s most crowded streets,
But often, in the din of strife,
There rises an unspeakable desire
After the knowledge of our buried life;
A thirst to spend our fire and restless force
In tracking out our true, original course;
A longing to inquire
Into the mystery of this heart which beats
So wild, so deep in us–to know
Whence our lives come and where they go.
And many a man in his own breast then delves,
But deep enough, alas! none ever mines.
And we have been on many thousand lines,
And we have shown, on each, spirit and power;
But hardly have we, for one little hour,
Been on our own line, have we been ourselves–
Hardly had skill to utter one of all
The nameless feelings that course through our breast,
But they course on for ever unexpress’d.
And long we try in vain to speak and act
Our hidden self, and what we say and do
Is eloquent, is well–but ’tis not true!
And then we will no more be rack’d
With inward striving, and demand
Of all the thousand nothings of the hour
Their stupefying power;
Ah yes, and they benumb us at our call!
Yet still, from time to time, vague and forlorn,
From the soul’s subterranean depth upborne
As from an infinitely distant land,
Come airs, and floating echoes, and convey
A melancholy into all our day.
Only–but this is rare–
When a beloved hand is laid in ours,
When, jaded with the rush and glare
Of the interminable hours,
Our eyes can in another’s eyes read clear,
When our world-deafen’d ear
Is by the tones of a loved voice caress’d–
A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast,
And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again.
The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain,
And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know.
A man becomes aware of his life’s flow,
And hears its winding murmur; and he sees
The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze.
And there arrives a lull in the hot race
Wherein he doth for ever chase
That flying and elusive shadow, rest.
An air of coolness plays upon his face,
And an unwonted calm pervades his breast.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the sea where it goes.
**********************
Dearly as we may (and do) love our closest loved ones, no one person can ever know every last inner iota of us … no one person can ever tease out of us every expression of every longing of our heart.
So we carry around with us this sack of The Unexpressed: the thoughts unspoken, the dreams not realized, and yah, the road not taken. The older we get, the bigger the sack gets.
If we’re extremely blessed, we find, as Arnold writes, someone who ties together past, present & future … in whose company we find the purpose of all that Unexpressed. It’s not that we get to go back again, cuz we don’t. But if we’re extremely blessed, our dearly beloved helps make us okay with not going back. Temptation there might be, but we are okay with letting the Unexpressed remain that way.
Jun 1, 2009 - 7:36 pm 33. Doc:I friended an old flame I had dumped…and got “ignored”. Twice. But much easier to take rejection over cyberspace.
Jun 1, 2009 - 8:18 pm 34. Pat Patterson:An old flame of mine who had dumped me friended me…And doggone it, i friended her, darned if she’ll get the satisfaction of knowing I don’t want to be friends! So I friended her and sent her back a terse response to her queries, the subtext of which pretty much was “there’s no need to continue this conversation.” Transparent, but satisfying in some small way.
Got a new girl anyway. So it’s all good.
But since we are all such good judges of character when young it probably is wise not to discover that other people are not the irredeemable snobs of memory but fully fleshed and having histories worth knowing. Plus through one of those clicks I discovered a French raconteur, actor, essayist, etc, “A man must marry only a very pretty woman in case he should ever want some other man to take her off his hands,” Sacha Guitry, that I have now become a fan of knowing full well that I never would have discovered him except through Facebook.
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