I stalk people on Facebook. I look for old friends from highschool, ex-coworkers and everytime I meet someone cool I look to see if they are there. It is interesting to see how people perceive themselves. I have become very honest with myself lately… I believe I am pretty honest with Facebook. I put pictures up of myself on Flickr, and while yes I won’t take a photo of myself when I am in slob mode or if I look particularly crap, I am totally at peace with the fact that I am not a glamour girl. I know some of the music I listen to is actually embarrassing but I listen anyway. I am not very “well read”, but I won’t be running off to the library any time soon. This is probably true for every aspect of my life.

I know what I don’t like about myself and I am working on it or I have accepted it won’t change.

On the same note, I think my Facebook (or any social network/blog) site of me is pretty realistic. Living the very “online life” that I do… utilities that watch where I surf, the music I listen to, the sites I bookmark, the books I buy and choosing to do things like Yahoo Live and photoboothing my life on Flickr demands honestly, otherwise I would spend 1/2 of my day crafting the fake person that I want to put out there… I would photoshop that zit or double chin… only listen to classical music and spend hours a day adding classic literature to my amazon wishlist. Sounds like a lot of effort and in the long term I can’t keep that up in real life so what am I getting out of it?

So it is funny to me to read the profiles of other Facebook users. Specifically the music, books, movies and about sections. I don’t think the people are being deceitful, it is just they are putting up the person they want to be, not the person they are. I wish I could say that I spent my days sipping wine, cooking exotic cuisine, reading Plato, listening to classical music and photographing leaves blowing in the wind…. and even that isn’t that true. I wish I actually would enjoy that. But I don’t and I wouldn’t. I like spending my days chatting with my friends, reading about the next hottest web 2.0 app… drinking crazy fruity bar drinks, listening to bad 80s George Michael and photographing my dog attacking my niece. Very different reality.

I guess Facebook is a dress to impress scenario. However I am finding that after a couple months I usually see people go in and start tweaking their music, books and movies. They start collecting their “real” friends on Facebook and want to share that they loved a movie with them, even if it is “Dude, where is my car”. The real them slowly becomes revealed. Honestly this doesn’t bother me, I was that way at one time… I think it is just our natural instinct to want to impress. Even those who want to be sad and pathetic want to be the saddest and the most pathetic. we all want to be the best or the most something.

My only fear is that we push others away with our lies. When I reconnect with a lot of old friends I sometimes am intimidated by their descriptions, and even though I should know better, I am like ‘wow there is no way we would get along’ and I am judging the “real” me versus the “impressive” them. I often wonder if this is why I think I am extremely approchable on things like Facebook and Twitter.

I guess the only thing I can hope for as more of my friends become internet savy concerning lifestreaming and social networks they too will show the “real” them.