five thousand is a rather arbitrary number. sure, it’s the largest isogrammic number in the english language, meaning that the letters that make up the name “five thousand” don’t repeat. a five thousand dollar bill, should you ever be so lucky to have one, will delight you with a picture of the fourth united states president james madison–you would have to be awfully lucky because that bill is no longer in circulation. and for facebook? five thousand friends means you are no longer a person.
this morning, i was surprised to discover that i am “an interest”. . . .
this is my profile picture as ArLynn Leiber Presser interest. i can "like" this page but i can't post on this page. i am completely clueless as to what this means. . . . can i be somebody's hobby?
i have no idea who created the page but it is accompanied by a wikipedia biography. i have a facebook friend who has created a “public figure” Arlynn Leiber Presser page. apparently, this will become massively important if i ever end up with five thousand friends. over the course of the last year, as i have visited the original 325 friends i have acquired some more new friends. but i’m really unclear as to why that means i have to be a public figure.
i'd rather be an action figure but i'll settle for being a barbie doll. i find this really confusing. . . .
today i went to lunch with f2fb friend #304 tracy lynn deis, who IS a public figure because she is a photographer with more than five thousand “fans”. and yet, she seems like a really nice friend. she works out of her home, designing online courses for professors who work out of their homes for students who will learn out of their homes. . . . probably everybody lives next door to each other they just don’t know it. tracy and i talked about how sometimes it feels like we can spend days without leaving the house and . . . it feels okay. it’s a choice. but then it’s hard to work up the energy to get out of the house. i was grateful she did. . . i was grateful i did.
my car is fixed so i can travel. i have a full backseat. at five o'clock i sort of had to fish or cut bait on seeing tracy lynn and i had the usual plethora of excuses for weaseling out and staying home. . . . so was tracy lynn!
and she told me the most insane facebook romance story ever. . . and i’ve heard a lot!
arlynnpresser 
March 9th, 2012 at 5:28 pm
When people declare “interests” in their profiles, Facebook goes out to find a match. This seems like an “unmatched” interest—perhaps people declaring it before your public figure page was available. Some threshold was reached of people claiming you as an interest. I bet there is some way you could claim it, or match it to the public figure page, and then some really interesting things might occur.
March 9th, 2012 at 5:39 pm
at least you know what you’re doing. i quite clearly don’t. but i am learning. . .
March 12th, 2012 at 3:14 pm
My comments the result of speculation, not investigation. It’s a hypothesis unpursued. Even Michelangelo said “I am still learning.” I hope to be similarly humble. We are all still learning. That’s one reason we write, isn’t it? We don’t know what we think until we’ve written it.
March 9th, 2012 at 7:53 pm
oh my, what a story ! but what a lovely lady she is 🙂
March 9th, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Really enjoyed this piece, ArLynn. I like your writing style and Tracy’s story…wow! I’m glad she can have a sense of humor about it! I would imagine she won’t be marrying of of FB anymore! 🙂
March 10th, 2012 at 9:11 pm
but she’s still a romantic at heart!!!
March 28th, 2012 at 3:11 am
Good for her! After all, I tend to think the world stays mostly good with we romantics! 🙂
March 11th, 2012 at 12:59 pm
Gosh, this is killing me….for some reason I can’t view your videos! Bummer. You’re writing is great though! I love your style! (I would better appreciate capitalization, as it distracts me, but I understand that’s your way.) Keep up the great work! xo
March 13th, 2012 at 12:03 am
Another lovely post, thank you! Just love your writing, LOVE! I have a little squeal of delight when I see your new posts, so keep on writing! 😀