...but I never forget a Face(book)

Ah, social networking sites. There are so many out there, each with their own little twists or gimmicks or specific focus. Lately, I've been trying to reconnect with friends from days gone by on Facebook. That's been an interesting experience, and an eye-opening one.

When I was about to marry my beautiful bride, Ashley, we had talked about what her name would be. Hyphenation came up and, at the time, I felt very hurt and insulted. I wanted the world to know that she was with me. I wanted her to take my last name ...to become a Perkins.

In the end, that's what she did, and she tells me, from time to time, that she is happy to be a Perkins. Usually, it's when I'm tossing around the idea of changing my name from "Robert Earle Perkins" to "Game Vortex .com". Perhaps she's mainly not too thrilled in becoming Mrs. ".com", but she and I are both happy with our new life together, and I think, for her, the name is part of that.

However, it wasn't until recently, as I tried to locate friends from back in high school, that I see how hard it can be to find someone once their name has been changed. On Facebook, I search for females from back in high school and pull back various results, often nothing that looks like it's likely to be the correct one. Most of the women I went to school with have since gotten married and, since I don't know their last names, it's difficult to find them. In fact, I end up letting others do most of the work. When I find someone I know, I look at their friends, in hopes that I will recognize someone from high school.

It seems strange, actually... most of the people from my high school (located an hour north of Baton Rouge) seem to have settled in Baton Rouge or the immediate vicinity, but I never see any of them as I go about the city. I suppose I only shop in a couple of grocery stores and I don't really frequent the mall, but I do eat at a lot of restaurants ...yet I never see anyone from "back in the day."

To compound things, there will often be search results that look like they might be someone I know, but when I try to look to verify, either the profile is locked unless you're a accepted friend or there's no profile picture... or the profile pic isn't clear and all of the other pictures they have are of other people - friends, family and the like.

It can get quite tiring. But, Facebook can serve as a nice way to keep in touch with friends you don't see so much anymore.

Do you know me? Check my Facebook page and say "hi."

Robert Perkins' Facebook profile