Think this is a good idea?
Crunchy Con writes about looking up an old girlfriend on Facebook:
I heard on the radio driving into work this morning a story about a guy who was bullied in high school. Years go by, and lo, his bully finds him on Facebook, and apologizes to him. That gave me an idea.
Back in 1991, I had a bad, bad break-up with my girlfriend. I treated her most unkindly. In fact, I was a pluperfect ass to her. Not long after I moved away, I realized how cruel I had been, and felt horrible about it. But by the time I worked up the courage to apologize and ask her forgiveness, she had moved. Last I heard, she was living overseas.
Over the years, my conscience has been heavily burdened by the need to apologize to her. But I didn’t know how on earth I would get in touch with her, or even if she lived in this country. As recently as a couple of weeks ago, getting ready for the start of Lent, I recalled her father’s name, and have been thinking about looking up his address and writing my apology in care of him, hoping he’d forward it to her. Something. Anything.
Listening to the story on the radio this morning, I thought I’d check and see if my old girlfriend is on Facebook. Her name is not uncommon, so I thought it’d be hard to search. I typed it in, and bam, there she was.
Read the whole thing here.
Do you approve? Let me know how it goes.
I have been the “old girlfriend” on the receiving end of the facebook apology. At first I wasn’t real thrilled that he had looked me up (15 years later) but in the end it brought closure and ended up being an okay thing.
Any and all business like that, conducted on facebook, loses all legitimacy. Some things just need to be done in person.
The more I work with facebook, the more shallow it strikes me.
I think facebook is too public a forum for something like this. I have taken he letter writing route and I think that is the better of the 2 options.
The other person has the option to accept/refuse the letter and it is kept between the 2 of you as it is meant to be.
Chris, maybe we should develop a Facebook App that instead of sending snowballs, green beer or pokes, one could send an apology. We could have a book tie in and different types of apologies. So-and-so sent you a 12-Step Apology, do you want to apologize back?
Inge Lewis – There are actually private ways to communicate on Facebook via Facebook’s Inbox which works like in-house email.