It’s quite possibly the most boisterous welcome I’ve ever received for just showing up.

“Yippee, you are finally here!”

“Thank God, Yea!”

“Glad you finally caved!”

“Soon you’ll be an addict like the rest of us!”

“Life as you know it will never be the same again!”

You’d think I had just returned from exile. But to my friends I was in exile, until I joined them on Facebook, the world’s most popular social networking site with 175 million users.

While Facebook and sites like it are revolutionizing the way we stay connected, it’s also transforming how military folks stay in touch. Parting ways with good friends is a big part of nomadic military life. For those of us who remember the prehistoric days before email and the Internet, exchanging parents’ addresses with close military friends was a contact safety net incase a Christmas card stamped with “Address Unknown” ever appeared in the mailbox.   

That, my friend, is so 20th century. These days, the question: “Are you on Facebook?” is winding its way through military circles. Facebook helps solve the mystery of  “I wonder what ever happened to so and so…?”

Less than 24 hours after joining, I not only reconnected with military spouses, but also elementary school classmates, long-lost college buddies and everyone in between, from the kid who sat five chairs down from me in middle school band class, to a friend’s older brother whom I had a crush on when I was 13. Facebook is less like a reunion and more like your wedding day, where people from different times and stages in your life are gathered in the same spot at the same moment. But unlike a receiving line, you actually have a chance to catch up.

Facebook isn’t for everyone. Do I really need to know that my friend just finished doing her laundry? Or that a middle school friend is watching American Idol? Is my life enriched by knowing my friend’s husband (whom I’ve never met) is off to the gym?

Probably not. But why not?  As my elementary school buddy Tina, said “Facebook is like Hotel California — you can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.”

Facebook is that addicting. I decided to ask my parents, who until two weeks ago did not own a cell phone, if they’d consider joining Facebook. The conversation went like this:

Me: “Dad, have you ever thought of getting on Facebook?

Dad: “Who?”

Me: “Facebook.”

Dad: “Faith book?

Me: “FACE-book.”

Dad: “No, why?

My mother who was apparently listening on the other end of the phone pipes in: “He doesn’t know about Facebook.”

Me: “Do you?”

Mom: “I know it’s a website. I’ve read about it in articles, Miss Smarty Pants.”
(Editor’s note to readers: Tanya’s mother didn’t really call her Miss Smarty Pants, but her intonation implied it).

In an effort to get my parents to join, I offered to find military friends they lost contact with years ago.

Me: “Okay, throw out a name, Dad.”

Dad: “Tom Brown.”

With a name like that he may as well have said John Doe. Talk about setting your daughter up for failure. Truth be told, my dad has been searching for Tom Brown, an old Army buddy, for decades.

In the end, I did a poor sales job in convincing my parents to join Facebook. The day after  our conversation, my mother emailed me with this:

“Did you hear about the controversy concerning Facebook on the morning news?” 

No, I had not. Apparently it had to do with the site’s privacy policy. I wrote back to my mother, “Thanks for the info, Miss Smarty Pants.”

(Editor’s note to readers: Tanya didn’t really call her mom “Miss Smarty Pants,” but she would have had she thought of it at the time).

So Col. Tom Brown, if you’re out there, my dad is looking for you. You just won’t find him on Facebook.

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