I have a propensity for curiosity. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t. We’re not talking about the kind of curiosity where the girl in the scary movie goes investigating the noise she heard while home alone babysitting two sleeping children. It’s the kind of curiosity where maybe there’s a line, and maybe you’ve crossed it.

Now at the end of the day, one could argue that we live in a curious society. Reality shows, for example, have us boldly delving into the abyss of strangers’ lives where we clearly have no business going.

And yet we’re begging for more.

There’s a story in William Bennett’s Book of Virtues for Children about a little boy who never uses the Please that resides in his mouth. The Please decides to escape from the brother who never uses him and run over to the brother who does use his Please. That’s what I feel about my Curiosity. She pries my mouth open whenever she pleases and asks whatever she is dying to know….

 It’s no wonder curiosity killed the cat.

I have always been a curious soul. If something doesn’t make sense, I like to get to the bottom of it.

So when Facebook came along, I couldn’t wait to discover what had happened to all those people I knew Way Back When. Did they get married and live Happily Ever After? Were they successful in their careers? What kind of lives were they living? Did all their dreams come true? Each new friend request that popped up meant an exciting new adventure of discovery was about to begin!

And as with most everything, one thing led to another and each friend led to another and so on and so on and so on…

Well, it turns out you can make a living out of “Getting to the Bottom of What People Are Up to Since the Last Time You Saw Them.” I just haven’t figured out a way to get paid for it.

But it has a price and oh, will it cost you.

It will cost you memories you once cherished.

It will cost you redefining  what you believe you knew Way Back When.

All because things don’t always turn out how you perceived they would and sometimes that’s a really big bummer.

For example, I momentarily (we can define that later) got REALLY hung up on why a friend of mine from childhood didn’t marry the man I was certain (as I’m sure many others were as well) she was destined to. They SO seemed like they were heading straight toward Happily Ever After. When I clicked on photos and saw a different man standing next to her at the altar I was perplexed. How did this happen exactly? What went wrong?

Why? Why? Why?

So I did what any person located in my predicament would do. … I kind of creeped on her Facebook page a bit searching for clues to this unimaginable mystery. C’mon, you know you’ve been there, done that, got the Creeper McGee tee shirt. Deny it all you want but I know.

But there were no explanations to be found.

No indication whatsoever of why she married someone completely different! I briefly toyed around with the idea of asking her in a roundabout way what happened to Happily Ever After but quickly came to terms with the fact that there was no tactful way to accomplish this. In a moment of complete insanity, I contemplated asking her point blank what the hell happened but figured the response I would get would probably come in the form of being un-friended.

So I just left it.

More or less.

I mean with 900 plus friends on Facebook there is plenty to choose from as far as creeping* goes.

So my creeper escapades on Facebook basically led me to the following conclusions:

• people I thought would DEFINITELY march down the aisle and walk straight into the Land of Happily Ever After either a) didn’t or b) ended up getting divorced just like I did
• complete fly-by the-seat-of-their-name-brand-pants idiots ended up getting better jobs than I did because of WHO they knew instead of WHAT they knew, and, yes, this REALLY pisses me off
• good friends I should have keep in better touch with, I didn’t, but instead of feeling guilty about it I can at least like their posts and wish them Happy Birthday and occasionally post a memory on their wall
• people I suspected were gay, are
• some people who seemed really cool Way Back When ended up being Super Staunch Republicans and I had unfriend them because of their Super Scary Political posts
• some people didn’t really deserve the lots in life they got and that really sucks
• some of my ex-boyfriends ended up being exactly where I never wanted to be and I am SO grateful we didn’t end up together
• some of my ex-boyfriends married REALLY beautiful girls and look REALLY happy in their  profile pictures and I have to admit this sometimes makes me feel REALLY (ugh!) jealous
• some of the girls who weren’t so nice to me in school and who I friended only to see if they failed miserably in life turned out to have similar Parenting Perils and we ended up having a lot in common in the Raising Kids Department which, in the end, makes all the ugly snarkiness on both our parts disappear (LIKE!)
• sometimes, people FINALLY got what they deserved and although I know smirking at this revelation requires me to ante up to the Karmic Tollbooth, I secretly think it’s worth it 😉
• some friends I would LOVE to reconnect with have never materialized on Facebook (or perhaps more accurately, I am not savvy enough to locate them) and this makes me sad
• Some people who said they were going to do something or said they were going to be something ARE and that’s REALLY awesome and inspiring

The bottom line is, things didn’t turn out the way I thought they would for a lot of people I knew Way Back When. Just as my own did, their story veered off the course it was set for and went in a totally unforeseen new direction.

And at the end of the day, that’s ok.

Perhaps those same people are creeping on MY Facebook page wondering why I didn’t become this or that, how come I didn’t stay married or, let’s be honest, why on earth I am STILL living in the Midwest when everyone knows you can take the girl out of California but nothing on earth can take the California out of the girl.

So, when you’ve finally logged off  Facebook, maybe you have to Byron Katie it back to you and realize you probably didn’t turn out the way you thought you would either.

And that’s ok too.

*For my mom, the definition of creeping courtesy of urbandictionary.com: