Social Networking Competition...Apparently

I've noticed an odd phenomenon among my Facebook/MySpace friends circle lately, but I wasn't sure, so I put it to the test last night.

Darling and I were kickin' it inflatable poolside last night and as we silly girls are wont to do, I pulled out the camera and started taking pictures of her unparalleled adorableness. We both love doing this and she's gotten much better at hamming it up.

I can't help myself. My parents were not "picture takers" and it was something I was determined to remedy as a parent. I hate not having many pictures of me when I was little. Our child is thoroughly documented thru visuals.

I always post them on Facebook or MySpace when I get around to it. Darling's aunts and uncles and distant cousins are always bugging me for pictures (she's one of the only little ones in our family right now until some them decide to reproduce, so she's a novelty) and I figure if they really want them, they can download them. My SIL gave me a really cool collage of Handsome, Darling and I for Christmas last year simply from yanking pics from my social networks.

So, last weekend I posted pics from Family Date Night at Loose Park, the Tinkerbell dress up day, and visiting Grandma at the Lake's house. All packed with cuteness and fortified by the funny captions I try to create.

Within hours, 3 mothers and 4 girlfriends/wives had posted pics of their fun times. I thought it was odd there was such an onslaught of pics all of a sudden, so I decided to test it.

I posted our swimming pictures last night and within a few hours 2 others had posted and by this morning, 3 others had pictures of their kids up.

Girls, it's not a competition...

It got me thinking about why people even bother joining Facebook/MySpace. Is it for the "SuperPokes" or to keep up with friends or to brag about your "fabulous" life?

Sometimes I think it's just a facade we all put up.

Is social networking just high school reinvented? How many friends can I accumulate to impress others? What I'm doing this weekend that's so much better than what you're doing (laundry and housecleaning)?

Moxie just doesn't roll that way. I don't care enough to compete. Does that make me boring? I don't know. I know I started this blog to stay away from their prying eyes so I could breathe a little of my own true opinion into things (not wanting my sometimes strong opinions to affect my husband's chances of getting into shows, that's not fair to him).

I joined them so that I could stay in touch with old friends (who are not in the picture posting category, it seems only to be Handsome's theatre posse), so I won't forget their birthdays, so I know when theatre stuff is coming up...it's brought me and my cousin who I fell out of touch with over the years closer together.

It has it's advantages, but then I realize the invasive power of it all when I see a friend out of the blue who asks me if my back is feeling better. "Oh yeah, I posted that on Facebook" I remind myself. And then I wonder if I'm sharing too much. But there are people I want to know what's going on in my life but if the stage manager's husband from Handsome's cast 4 shows ago wants to be my "friend" doesn't it make me a total bitch to deny their request?

I hate the invasiveness of it all right now. I hate the invisible competition that I seem to be in without wanting to be in it.

Moxie's always kind of danced to the beat of her own drummer and I know that there are people in Handsome's circle who think I'm weird because I could give a rat's ass about "America's Next Top Model" or "Sex in the City". They're shocked that I'm not into that stuff. I'd rather read a book or see a show or go to a museum.

I think I forgot the point to this post. So sorry. I think it was something about feeling like I'm in a fishbowl.

Anybody else have thoughts about Facebook/Myspace? Am I just being a snob/paranoid?