Déjà vu

Facebook  is telling me I am looking at a picture of my old chum Jerome whom I last saw on the afternoon of my wedding twenty-two and a half years ago.  But this Jreome's hair has morphed and migrated from an unruly jet-balck punkish mop to a trim salt and pepper goatee.  I sift through the photo album for further proof that the middle-aged man posing with the two young girls (daughters?  nieces? underage friends?" is the same guy who used to smoke contraband indian cigarettes.  What happened to his tight black pants and t-shirt?  This man is wearing baggy cargo shorts and hiking shoes.  Is that a blackberry on his belt?

I scan Jerome’s list of mostly good-looking Spanish friends and discover Marc, also an old schoolmate, also middle-aged, bald, with a wisp of under-lip soul-patch. Marc lives in France, Jerome in Barcelona. I’ve tracked Marion in Paris.   She sent me her recipe for homemade mayonnaise but declined further conversation a(perhaps she has more exciting things to do than post updates on Facebook). And there’s Bernard with whom I’ve corresponded off and on for more than twenty years but seen only once. He looks older and needs glasses to read. He belongs to a group called “Les amoureux de Chamrouse” and he still loves women, and men.

Jerome's profile says that he works for Sony in Barcelona.  I try to remember: was he into music?  My minds reels back to a late spring afternoon in Lyon, France.  It was hot.  A group of us was sunbathing on bath towels outside the dorm.  A radio was playing.   We had books to study, and magazines to look at.  Jerome was leaning out of is first floor window.  But what did he say that made me so mad, I slapped him?  It wasn't much of a slap - Jerome was taller by a foot - but it stayed between us for a while.  A year later, I moved to the US.  Jerome came to the wedding, which surprised me but within a few years we had lost track of each other.  

Can Facebook renew old ties?  Can it forge new ones past the initial curiosity of balding hair, thicker waistlines and full resumes.  Or will this be a periodical virtual college reunion?  I have not been good at keeping in touch.  Can I change?  Do I want to? 

Comments

[Jerome]

I am not sure Facebook can help renewing old ties (supposing you want to do so), but the fact is that until I saw "Marie-Pierre Stien vous a ajouté(e) comme ami(e) sur Facebook..." I used to think that I had mantained contact with everybody I wanted to stay in touch with. Now I have some doubts...
By the way, I still wear black clothes (but not for hicking) and I have no blackberry