Sometimes I'm pretty socially inept. I'm hoping maybe I can get the opinions of some people who are less socially inept than me.

I just learned that a very close childhood friend (I'll call him "Bill") died last night. We have been more like facebook acquaintances for the past 12 years or so (i.e. not really close), but we were quite close as kids and his father is best friends with my father, so there is still a connection that is closer than would otherwise be the case.

So, I'm facebook friends (but not really close, I don't ever email or call them) with two other childhood friends who were both close to me and close to Bill (and are Bill's Facebook friends as well).

I'm tempted to send private messages (through Facebook) to these friends letting them know that Bill died, because I think they would want to know and that Bill's parents would probably appreciate their thoughts. But:

1. It's all kinds of awkward. Once in a while I post something on these friends' walls, we wish each other happy birthday and "like" each other's posts, but that's kind of an illusion of closeness. Aside from the question of whether it is EVER appropriate to disclose death by Facebook, it's certainly strange to get a private message out of the blue with such startling information.

2. Bill died of a drug overdose. I don't know how his family will choose to talk about this outside the family (I know this because, as noted, his dad is very close to my parents). Of course I wouldn't mention the cause of death in my note, but since Bill is 30 and extremely fit (someone who led a very active, outdoorsy lifestyle), the omission would itself raise questions. Bill has had a long, brave struggle with addiction, and I assume (but don't know for a fact) that the other friends are at least vaguely aware of this (it started around the end of high school). In any case, I don't want to release any information, even if only by raising questions, that the family wouldn't want released or would want to release themselves.

Thoughts?