Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The Ghosts of Personalities Past

As I have mentioned several times before, I think Facebook is a wonderful thing. I have been able to keep up with current friends, organize a reunion of my high school marching band members, find long-lost friends and find new friends who share my interests.


Like many, I have been many people during my lifetime. I am sure - or at least I hope to heavens - that I will continue to evolve and be a new, hopefully better, person in 10 years or so. This brings me to the "long lost friends" part of Facebook.


Are people frozen in time there? Like my not-so-friend from grade school, are people forever stuck with their last impression of you? If so, I, like Lucy, have some 'splaining to do.


I recently had the extremely good fortune to be able to locate college roommates from my freshman year at OSU. These gals were some of my first impressions of college life and they were (and I am sure, still are) fantastic. The problem is, I was a little less fantastic.


I suffered my first real broken heart my sophomore year of college. I went a little nutso and then took up with a boyfriend I would be with - on and off - throughout my college career. He was not a great influence. The problem was, I wasn't a strong enough personality not to be easily influenced. Long story short, I made bad decisions and the relationship with my awesome friends ended badly and it was completely my fault. (This may bring us to another post later on: Losing friends over boyfriends. But I digress.)


Flash forward: I've recently discovered a lot of those friends on Facebook and they seem genuinely interested in what I'm up to these days. I am enormously thankful for the opportunity to a) right past wrongs and b) show them that I am no longer a psycho hosebeast. I'm torn as to whether or not to acknowledge my behavior circa 1993. Fifteen years is a lot of water under the bridge.

I have actually apologized - via her husband - to the gal I feel I wronged the worst. Her husband and I go way back, to high school, actually, and I hope he passed along my regret and apologies. Other than that, I am thinking that I'll let my current life and attitude speak for itself.

Thoughts? Advice? Fashion tips? What would you do?

4 comments:

mommakin said...

But - but - if you've changed and deserve a second chance with people you screwed up with... (and congrats, on that, BTW!!!) then what are the implications here for the girls who screwed up with you?

I'm sure it's different - and there are always nuances - but - but...

What would I do? Jump in where you are now. If the past comes up, acknowledge it, but don't make it your starting point. That's my advice. Advice from someone relatively socially inept, so take that for what it's worth...

smarmygal said...

See, that is where I am torn, friend! If I think I deserve a second chance (and I am glad they mostly think so, too) then don't the people who were nasty to me deserve the same? Yes, I would argue, yes they do.

Difference here is that I acknowledge and would like to rectify the past up front. Is it a HUGE difference? nope. I am guessing the college friends are just - as they have been from the get-go - better people than I. ;) Here's hoping my evolution takes me along that path!

mommakin said...

:-)

Jenny Penny said...

Pink and red rarely mix well. That's my fashion advice. I think it's dated. Anyway, about the rectifying wrongs from the past thing, I think there would be nothing strange at all about just putting out there. Get it off your chest. That's basically what you'd have liked from those in your past who've done you wrong in some form, right? But I don't really think that's why I'm saying this. It just seems like an elephant in the room. Shoot it and move on. :)