i first opened a facebook account when mark zuckerberg allowed regular folks–i made friends with my two sons joseph and eastman.  and then suddenly, the friend requests started coming in.  i was popular!  which certainly wasn’t the case when i was a teenager.  i accepted promiscuously.  the guy who worked at the hardware store.  the mom of the girl that eastman went out with in eighth grade.  the gal who might have sat behind me in freshman world history.  . . or maybe i’m confusing her with someone else.  and then there were people i didn’t even know–aawagdy hakim.  i had no idea who this guy or gal is. all of the profile is in arabic.  but still, i get requests from aawagdy to play pirates versus ninjas, then mafia wars, then farmville.  my facebook new years resolution to meet all my friends is certainly going to be as much of a surprise to aawagdy as it already has been to me!

doug nash and i went to high school in naperville (although i, of course, dropped out).  i might remember him.  he might remember me.  we probably have confused each other with somebody else.  but we’re facebook friends.  in fact, i am exactly half the population of doug’s facebook friends list.

that’s because apparently i persuaded him to open up a facebook account because i said it was a good way to monitor what his children were doing.  they’re young but if he already has an account, they can’t very well tell him he’s not allowed to have a facebook presence and he might even have the moral high ground to demand that they let him be their friend.

two rules for parents who are facebook friends with their children:

1.  never comment on a status or a public post

2.  don’t look at photos your child has posted or is tagged in.  it will only upset you to see your little darling passed out with a four loko drink in her hand and “slut” written across her forehead.

doug and i live in adjoining towns and run into each other a few times a week.  we sat down and talked about the upcoming end of the world, what our families are doing, the wonderful story of how he met his wife shelly, and his job, which is to read.  doug is a trader and spends three or four hours a day reading the news, looking for how the market is going.  he can do it in his pajamas at home.  lucky guy.

doug is f2fb friend #126.  i am doug’s f2fb friend #1.

“you only have one other facebook friend,”  i pointed out.  “who is aloha lester?”

“i have no idea,” doug said.