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The other day, a 15-year-old girl tried to add me as a Facebook friend. While this is probably some people’s idea of a good time (or a first-draft premise for the film “Hard Candy”), I already feel awkward enough in real life running into former campers from my summer at Camp Hess Kramer.

To make matters worse, this was someone who I’d never met, the sister of a girl I barely knew in high school. I have no idea how she found me or how she’ll react to the prominent placement of my friend Tecate in my now-defunct profile picture, so thanks a lot, Facebook.

The whole high school-college thing is one of the new features the ’book is trotting out to try to keep up with MySpace.

Thankfully, most people are using the ridiculous “status” feature to be ironic rather than actually supplant their AIM away messages, but some of the new gimmicks are actually pretty interesting.

Being the list-obsessed guy I am, my personal favorite is the trend-tallying Facebook Pulse.

Most of the UCLA edition makes sense – real-life Californians like “The O.C.” less than the rest of the country, especially after the train wreck of the last seven episodes or so. Not that I’m keeping track. And being the discerningly hip viewers we are, we love “Arrested Development” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.”

It’s the music front that throws me off: Apparently, four years later, The Postal Service is still one of our collective favorite bands.

A quick look at the rest of the list isn’t too surprising: Jack Johnson (obligatory Santa Barbara surfer dude), Green Day (obligatory Bay Area punk), The Beatles (obligatory best band ever) and The Killers (obligatory worst band ever) are all in the top 10.

But The Postal Service just doesn’t make sense, especially not when it’s actually a notch above Ben Gibbard’s real band, Death Cab For Cutie.

There was something in the marriage of Gibbard and Jimmy Tamborello (aka Dntel) as The Postal Service which captured a strange cultural zeitgeist.

Previous to 2002’s “Give Up,” Gibbard’s might-as-well-be-emo vocals had been constrained by Death Cab’s low-budget indie rock. But he found a better backing band in Tamborello’s Playskool IDM (intelligent dance music – like Moby, minus Gwen Stefani and the baldness).

A few electronic beats and cheeseball lyrics later, The Postal Service had captured the hearts of anyone looking for an indie alternative to the ironic masculinity embodied by The Strokes.

I say they were in the right place at the right time. “Such Great Heights” is a great song, but a novelty one, and anyone in possession of the next Death Cab album or Dntel’s other projects would likely agree.

Even the band itself didn’t do the best versions of its own songs. The Shins’ and Iron & Wine’s versions of “We Will Become Silhouettes” and “Such Great Heights,” respectively, demolish the originals, and anybody who’s checked Facebook Pulse knows how much UCLA loves “Garden State,” the popular film that features both bands on its soundtrack.

More importantly, the band was a side project. The duo hasn’t really recorded since, and there were plenty of equally popular albums in 2002 that hold up better today: Wilco’s “Yankee Hotel Foxtrot” or Interpol’s “Turn on the Bright Lights,” for instance.

According to the Pulse, Gibbard infatuation in any form looks like a SoCal phenomenon, but even Seth Cohen had the good sense to leave “Give Up” out of his Chrismukkah gifts.

The Postal Service has come back in a tiny way lately, doing a remix of indie diva Feist’s “Mushaboom” for her new album “Open Season.”

The remix not only replaces the entirety of the original backing track with tired Tamborello gimmickry, but splatters Gibbard’s hyper-emotional wail all over what passes for an interlude.

After Death Cab’s disappointing “Plans,” the guy seems to be experiencing all kinds of downward spiraling, but I guess that’s to be expected after attaining a big record deal and the adoration of thousands of college students.

So what gives, fellow Bruins? Did we all just forget to update our profiles? Surely we can unite behind another super-group collaboration. Gnarls Barkley comes to mind, and if 41,905 friends on MySpace is any barometer of popularity, we’ll probably like them too.

If you’re just happy Fall Out Boy isn’t on the list, e-mail Greenwald at dgreenwald@media.ucla.edu.