Rick's World

Link: http://www.facebook.com

Facebook has been getting a lot of press lately. And most of it good press. Facebook is a social networking site. Exactly what that means, I'm not entirely sure, but since Facebook has been so popular lately, I decided to sign up and see what it's all about. A couple of days ago I did just that.

I have to say, my first impression of Facebook is quite good. The site has a very clean, professional feel to it, unlike the God-awful ugly Myspace. It's not too cluttered, and it seems to be pretty easy to use. One of the points of a social network is to find and connect with friends. You use it to keep up with what they are doing. One of the nice features that Facebook has is the ability to search for people based on what college and what high school you went to. I haven't found any friends on the high school search yet, but I did locate an old college roommate of mine.

This college roommate of mine (who's name shall remain anonymous, in the interests of privacy) and I shared a dorm room for the better part of a year at school. At the time we met he was also a Computer Science Major, as I was. He was also a Windows user at the time, as I was. Later, after we were no longer roommates, he switched to Macs and MIS as a major. I stuck with Windows from that point up until only recently. It looks like he may have been right about Macs way back then. He was also a very strict Christian at the time (and he no doubt still is). At the time, he was also straight (meaning heterosexual). He went on various dates with girls while we were roommates. All very standard stuff. Him and I got along fine. At the time however, I had this distinct feeling that he might be gay, and that he just hadn't realized it yet. Of course, I never mentioned it to him, but I always had that feeling. It turns out that I was right.

Yesterday, a good 15 years after graduating college, I found him on Facebook. I read his profile only to discover that he was, in fact gay (bisexual apparently). I'm impressed that he is that open about that on his profile. That's a thing that many people would find uncomfortable admitting in public. I was pleased to see this. Not because it proved my hunch at the time correct, but because apparently somewhere along the way he realized this fact himself and accepted it. I'm proud of him.

Way to go, my friend!