Slow to Join; Glad I Did

I've got this thing. I don't want to do something if everyone else is doing it. Not because I'm such a great individualist, but because I don't want to be left holding the bag if it all goes bad. It's true. Throughout large portions of my childhood and adolescence, I would go along with everyone else because I couldn't think of anything better to do. (I'm not terribly creative.) But, time and again, I'd be the one caught and in trouble because I couldn't make a quick enough getaway.

Case in point: one afternoon several of us girls were romping through the church building while waiting on our parents to finish a meeting. Now, at the time, the R.A.s had a secret hideout thingy they'd built in the children's area with ladders and false walls and stuff, but it was (naturally) off limits to any and all females.

We girls decided while the boys were out on the playground, we'd take the opportunity to hunt for the secret hideout. Sneaking away, that's exactly what we did. We searched high and low until we found the ladder leading to the cedar-paneled room filled with boy stuff (none of which interested us, of course). To our delight, we'd located their secret, even if it wasn't terribly exciting. I was looking around the room, searching for something unique enough to make this trek worthwhile, when suddenly, all the girls scattered and I was alone. Face-to-face with a boy two years older than me who wasn't at all happy about seeing a third grade girl in a boy's hideout. I hemmed and hawed and took off like a bolt of lightning, but, I'd been caught. He reported the invasion to his dad, who told my dad, and well, let's just say I didn't venture up there again.

See what I mean? I was the only one caught, even though I insisted I wasn't alone. Since then, I've rarely even signed political petitions as a safety measure. Should I ever decide to run for public office (ha!), my opponents will have a hard time saying I was a supporter of "such and such" or adverse to "fill-in-the-blank."

I guess that's why I was so slow to join the Facebook revolution. If it all breaks down, I don't want to be responsible! But, I'm now realizing just how much I've already missed. Since last Monday, I've rediscovered old friendships and reconnected with people I love. As much as we are and claim to be a "hibernating" culture, I can't help but believe we still desire relationship most of all. Facebook just helps us do relationships on our own terms; for good or bad is still to be determined, I think. But for now, I'm loving it.