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I joined social networking late.  I never had a LiveJournal.  I had no interest in MySpace, assuming it was a place where teenagers and single people hung out.  I had no burning desire to find old high school classmates and so I avoided the reunion sites that had cropped up.

One day, though, years after it had already become popular, I signed up for a Facebook account so that I could more easily talk to my family and share photos of the kids.

I quickly found several friends from my teen years.  For the first several months, I spent hours sending messages back and forth with my friend Anne.  We found each other on my first day of Facebook membership and immediately fell back into our old habit of writing long, long letters to one another.  We hadn’t spoken since our freshman year of college, having lost each other when we each broke up with our then-boyfriends, who were best friends.  I found another friend, also lost in that break up, and he and I spent many hours chatting on the instant message system.  He had four kids and was going through a divorce, too.  We talked about custody arrangements and separations.  He was the only one I could talk to openly about what was going on in my marriage.  For the first time in years, I felt the relief that comes from having a friend who knows everything.  Secrets do not sit well in the pit of my stomach.

I didn’t find Tony right away.  His profile may have popped up as a possible connection early on, but the profile did not look familiar.  Tony was using his given name (a name he had completely rejected in high school), he had listed a different city and state as his hometown, and he had used a photo of a cardboard robot costume as his profile picture.  For all I knew, this was the profile of the pedophile from Texas.

Then, one winter day, his profile popped up again as someone who was a friend of a friend.  The profile picture had changed to a picture of my Tony, wearing a name tag bearing a copy of his high school senior portrait. Thank heaven for the subtle cruelties of high school reunions. 

I could barely breathe.  So.  This was Tony then.  I debated whether to send a friend request.  We had not exactly parted on good terms. If he remembered me, he most likely did not have particularly fond memories of me.  I had last seen him 20 years before.  21?  I calculated the time lost in my head.  I walked away from the computer for a while.  Later that day, I dug out my old high school memory box. Still sitting there were my “Tony Collection:” valentines roses dried and tagged; a screw cap from the bowling alley where we went on our second (third?) date; the love note he had written to me; his senior portrait, with the photo finish worn off because I carried it with me for two years and used it as my bookmark.  He may not have fond memories of me, but I had fond memories of him.  I decided, what the heck?  If he didn’t want to talk to me, he could ignore my request.  No harm, no foul.  But I would regret it if I didn’t at least try.

I clicked the “friend request” link, added a brief, purposefully casual note of the “Hi, I don’t know if you remember me” variety and before I could change my mind, I sent the request out across the series of tubes.  For the next several minutes, I sat there, hitting refresh again and again in a pitiful maneuver sadly reminiscent of The Social Network.  And then I closed my computer and walked away from it.

The next morning, I had a message, and a new Facebook friend.  I studied Tony’s profile.  I read every status update, every conversation, every link.  I went all the way to the beginning of his profile and read to his latest status update.  I studied his information page.  I poured over his photos.  At first, I thought it was just curiosity, the same sort of interest I had in finding out how my other long-lost acquaintances had turned out.

Then I saw a picture of Tony, smiling directly into the camera – his eyes crinkling at the corners just the way I remembered, and I knew.

Tony

This was different.  Tread cautiously, I warned myself.  You are raw from lingering post-partum depression and your failed marriage.  Watch yourself.

So, of course, I did the opposite.  I posted a teasing comment on his wall.  He teased back.  I read the personal blog that he had linked on his information page.  He had written a post in which he described his “type” and described … me.  To a T.  There was another post where he talked about a best friend he had in high school, whom he missed, and described … our relationship.

We exchanged emails for several weeks, catching up on the missing 20 years and rehashing and forgiving old wounds.  He was surprised to see my friend request, thinking that it was his fault we had ended so badly; I was surprised he had accepted, thinking that he must have hated me.    Then, one night, I saw that he was on Facebook.  I sent him an instant message.

C’mon, I thought, biting my lip.  Respond, respond, respond. 

“hi”

I almost jumped out of my chair.  We chatted online for an hour or so, until he had to leave.  We wrote about old events, old feelings.  We filled in gaps.  We made no plans to continue the conversation, but were loathe to end it.After we signed off, I stood up, leaned my head against the upper cabinets of my office, and tried to breathe.  My whole body shook.  I didn’t hear from him again for a few days.  I started to worry.  I sent a couple of jokey emails until I realized that I was teetering on the edge of Creepy Stalker Ex-Girlfriend, so I backed off, figuring that, then, was that.  One day not too long after, I was chatting with Anne when a second window popped up.

“hi.”

And all I could think was, for goodness’ sake, whatever you do, do not, under any circumstances, be the first one to say “I love you.”