Face it...

Hello, my name's Melissa and I'm a Facebookaholic...

words I thought I would never say #379. Yes, I also tried to resist Facebook. Yes, once again, i failed miserably.

I do not know what makes Facebook so appealing - its not the colours, the design, it sure as heck isn't the fact that 'the new Facebook is here!' (to paraphrase a friend's status update "I hate the new facebook and hope George Orwell writes a book about it"). It's also probably not the fact that it reports my every move- who is Facestalking me today?
And speaking of reporting, do I really want my liberal acceptance of friend-requests leading to my family friend's mother's news feed informing her that I commented on her daughter's photo, and if she'd care to read on she can find out the details of last Saturday night's adventure in Kings Cross? (although one would hope that she has neither the desire nor the time on her hands to find out). Hamish (of Hamish and Andy fame) has this to say about mothers on Facebook: "Its one of those things where Facebook is an online party, basically. Theres all the photos, all the in-jokes, and whilst everyone loves their mums, mums aren't invited to everything. Thats not what being a mum is. Its not an access all areas pass. I moved out of home so you wouldn't find out all my dirty secrets..."
But dirty secrets are certainly abundant on Facebook- whether posted by you or not, they're up there, for all 358 of your closest friends to read. Which brings me to my next point- being fairly new to Facebook I am still ignorant as to the etiquette (if there is one) of friend requesting & accepting. Having accepted several requests from people from school that I am pretty sure I have never had an actual conversation with I now wonder- how far does it go? Do I have a moral obligation to invite every acquaintance I have to access my personal information? Does the guy I sat next to on a bus 3 years ago have a right to know that my favourite colour is purple and I'm enthusiastic about cheese?
As a Facebook newbie I accepted a friend request from someone I didn't know (lets call him 'Fred'), on the basis that we had a lot of mutual friends. As these friends were mostly from school, I assumed it was someone that I knew, but somehow had temporarily forgotten. Unfortunately, his display picture is a car. I am at least 96.3% sure that he is not, in fact, a car. But beyond that I, along several of our 'mutual friends' am at a complete loss as to who this guy actually is, and how to go about finding out. Do I ask him? Do I Facestalk him? Do I create a Facebook group with the title 'Does anyone actually know who the heck this 'Fred' guy is anyway', and craft an extensive discussion about display picture etiquette as part of an elaborate plan to make him eventually be added to the group and learn his lesson? Or do I simply wait and hope that he- like many before him- takes a photo of himself that he deems deceptively attractive enough to trick people that have known him offline for years into thinking that he is ridiculously good looking and they just never noticed before?