Everybody knows at least one.

Those strange individuals who refuse to join social networks. Your un-Facebook friends.

Today (err yesterday, as it’s 1 am), the Washington Post did an article on young adults who fall within Facebook demographics, yet refuse to join.

The vast majority of their peers in the millennial generation are social networking pros: About 85 percent of all Internet users 18 to 34 visited Facebook, MySpace or Twitter in August, according to ComScore, a Reston-based Internet data research company. And about 84 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds check social networking sites at least once a week, according to a May study by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around it. A twentysomething not on Facebook. It’s so strange.

Up until this May, I knew one.

This freak of nature is my oldest friend, Laura. We’ve known each other since we were ten years old. She always had the appearance of normality. She went to college and was well-adjusted. She has a good job and shares my love for shopping and antiques. Until Facebook came along.

Whereas, I jumped on the opportunity to join in the fall of 2004 (that’s right folks. Six months after it started at Harvard, I was on it.), Laura flat out refused. She shared this experience and frequently complained:

His lack of membership on Facebook has other disadvantages. Sometimes Thomas doesn’t find out about parties being touted on the site until the last minute. Last week he almost missed a gathering at Johana’s nightclub in Petworth.

Laura once told me that she never got invited to go anywhere. My response: you’re not on Facebook. That’s how things happen.

Despite pleas from friends, Laura refused. That is until this spring. We had the final and ultimate trump card: wedding pictures.

Once she got back from her honeymoon, Laura was anxious to see pictures. However, professional wedding shots take weeks to finish. As the bride, she couldn’t carry a camera around with her, so she depended on her friends.

We had all agreed at the wedding to hold her photos hostage and only post them on Facebook.

Laura now has a Facebook profile. She’s not that active, but it’s a start.

Tags: Facebook, friends, wedding pictures

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 15th, 2009 at 11:09 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.