Revealing Too Much Online Can Make Things Complicated

I heard former President Bill Clinton say something recently that piqued my curiosity. He pointed out that when he first took office in 1992, there were only 50 websites on the internet. My, how times have changed. Now there are 200 million sites and tons of people of all ages have their own Facebook account. You can learn most anything you want to know about people on the internet. Think I’m kidding? Google yourself sometime. But as one of my comedian buddies says, don’t do it in public. Case in point: the dating lines are very blurry these days. Recall me telling you about one of the college girls on a recent mission trip telling me about her “almost boyfriend.” Another girl on the trip claimed she wasn’t sure where she stood with her significant other until he introduced her as his girlfriend at a function of some sort. Facebook provides a remedy to all that. It is now plain for the world to see. If a friendship develops into something deeper, a person’s Facebook status will reflect this by claiming that they are now “in a relationship.” If the relationship is strained, the status will change to “It’s complicated.” My mom entered the Facebook world a few months back. Recently she upgraded her status to “In a relationship” with my dad, her husband of nearly 52 years. This has created quite a stir among her friends and has led to questions about the circumstances of my birth. She has been advised to change her status to “Married” but I think she’s enjoying the hullabaloo too much to change it right away. Obviously my occupation is not that of a professional writer. As you may know, I am the coach of a college baseball team. And in the past few years, especially this season, I have noticed that opposing fans know more about my players than ever before. Recently a group of exuberant college students from an opposing school did their internet homework quite thoroughly before we showed up. One of my pitchers had made the mistake of calling his girlfriend “Baby Doll” on his Facebook page. And one of our outfielders had admitted to doing some male modeling along the way. These college student hecklers were all over my guys. From the outside looking in, it may appear that these antics are a distraction, but to be honest, our players sorta enjoy the attention and, if you ask me, even play better when they’re being taunted. As a coach, fortunately I have developed selective hearing when it comes to taunts and insults, hearing pretty much what I want to hear. At the end of the weekend, I was poking a little fun at some of my guys for revealing too much online. Then our trainer reminded me that I had little room to talk. I had no clue what she was talking about. “Didn’t you hear them when you went out on a mound visit (to talk to the pitcher) on Saturday? One of them kept hollering, ‘Hey Coach, are you Embracing the Chaos yet?’” Darn that website (www.rustystroupe.blogspot.com) and that little book. At least they didn’t read anything about my mom and dad being “in a relationship.” That would have made things even more “complicated.”