Confessions of a Facebook Timeline creeper

I am a naturally curious person. Everything is amazing to me, even something that seems totally mundane to you. So I probe. I probe in conversation, I probe with my eyes, and I reach for anything I want to better understand.

I’m probing you, too.

I know that sounds awful, but I mean no harm. It’s just that I find you absolutely fascinating. And now I have a great way to learn all about you – Facebook Timeline.

Now here’s the rub: while I’m creeping down your Timeline, what is the proper etiquette for whether or not I should post a smartass comment on a photo you posted last year? What about one you posted in 2004? Yes, I go that far if you’re interesting. I go all the way back.

Now, before you freak out and unfriend me, please understand that I’m not crazy. Well, at least not in the I-get-off-on-watching-you-when-you-don’t-even-know-it way. I’m just intrigued. For those of you who know me, you know that I am an admirer of souls and a collector of stories. I just love people. I love learning what songs you love, what places you’ve been to, who you’re closest to, what you find funny. If I had the capability to learn about you in person, I’d be finding these things out through conversation and questions, but conversation seems to be mostly online now anyway.

So here’s my question: if you hadn’t read this and had no idea about who I really am, would you freak out if I posted a comment about something you said six years ago? Now that this is the “scrapbook of your life,” is it weird that a friend would look at it? It used to be that I’d invite you over to my house to hang out, and we’d end up looking at photos of my trip to France in 1997. We’d laugh, and I’d tell stories. But now things are different. So now what?

Am I the only one who feels this way? Do you guys look at a friend’s old photo and hover your fingers over the keys, wishing you could say something, but holding yourself back for fear of seeming creepy? I can’t be the only one, right?

So help me out here. We need to establish the ground rules. Because I have something hilarious to say about that one picture of you on Halloween a few years back.