I’ve also echoed the call to get you on to Facebook. However, we shall all, doubtless, respect — and perhaps, at least in my case, understand — your refusal.

Re: MZ’s post, I shouldn’t mind grabbing a pint, would you be around and interested, next time I’m in Chicago!

But the most uncomfortable aspect of it for me is this: I get all sorts of friend requests from people I sort of knew in high school. Fine, nice to be Facebook friends, whatever. But then last week one of those barely-remember-you folks lost her mother, and suddenly there was this clamor for all the Facebook friends to “do” something for the woman.

And I thought – well, I’ll send a note of condolence, fine; but I haven’t physically seen the woman in 23 years, it’s not like we were ever anything resembling “close” – we might have said hello in the hallways – but now I should do flowers or go to the funeral?

If that sounds cold it’s not meant to. Point is, Facebook tends to draw some “friends” closer than you’re really comfortable with.

I know that this runs counter to everything my dear mother taught me, but doesn’t the value rest in the fact that “everyone else is doing it”?

I think back to Andrew Nelson Lytle in “I’ll Take My Stand,” lamenting that people had stopped going to barn dances and ice-cream socials. Which I suppose is lamentable enough. But was there something inherent in these arrangements that captured their value? Dancing in a barn is somehow better than dancing in a different kind of structure? Socials dedicated to ice cream are superior to socials dedicated to licorice? Seems to me that the real value rested in the fact that… people went to such things, met there, and interacted.

I think there is a lot to be said for the people who held out longest, who kept up the traditions. But somebody was the last guy at the barn dance, and he was no longer doing what he was supposed to be doing at barn dances. So maybe what replaced barn dances was silly and arbitrary. But so were barn dances. Or, at least they were at one time or another. Then became so again.

I agree that people are too quick to disregard traditions, and too eager to invent new ones for no good reason. But in the end, the trappings of the traditions matter less than the social interaction that they allow. So perhaps if several of your long-time friends are inviting you to join something, the fact that the thing itself is silly is less important than the fact that they are in fact offering the entreaties.