I'm not one of those people who sits on Facebook, playing mindless games for hour after hour. The Facebook game I like to play isn't an app. I made it up. I call it, “Who the Hell Are You Again?”
I could play this one for hours. You'll get some guy whose profile photo is a tree, or a cow, or something. Or possibly himself in a ridiculous clown suit. Who knows. The point is, Who the Hell is He Again?
I've been on Facebook for a long time, and done a lot of traveling, and met a lot of people. I never clear anyone off the list, because that would ruin the game, but also because I like collecting things, and Facebook Friends are very, very portable.
“Man, he looks sooo familiar. Is he that guy I met in Colorado Springs? No! I picked him up hitch-hiking in Oklahoma! No, wait, he's friends with a girl from my high school English class. How the hell would they have met? I don't think he was in the class...it says he grew up in Albany, anyway...”
Most of these hippies I met when I was traveling went by unconventional names, anyway, like “Tea Biscuit,” “Bear Claw” or “Firefly Moonweb.” But when they find me on Facebook, they're using normal names like John Green, Carrie Johnson or Alistair Smith. Even so, I can usually figure it out, if they haven't cut their hair and gone to work for the Man yet.
And then, there's fun with old classmates. For some crazy reason, no one looks quite the same as they did when they were sixteen years old. Well, okay, some of them do, we're not that old yet. But most of them have put on weight, or lost weight, or changed their hair color, or had plastic surgery (those fish-lips have got to be collagen-inflated, right?)
“Hmmm...Jennifer...I did hang out a lot with a blonde girl named Jennifer when I was about thirteen...if I squint and sort of turn my head to one side it kind of looks like her...”
Some people are wearing glasses now, or they've ditched the glasses they used to wear. Some of the men have lost their hair, some have grown enormous beards. Some have lost their hair and grown enormous beards, which isn't the way to go, if you ask me. Some post photos of their kids instead of themselves, leaving me to break out the old third-grade class picture and play Who Do You Look Like?
Naturally, all the women are now married and have changed their names. This only adds to the fun. They let you fill in your maiden name for a reason, folks.
I can't start asking who's who because that would ruin the game, and it might also hurt some feelings. To be honest, I've got a couple of people on Facebook that I don't remember from Adam. I know, from our mutual connections, that I must have lived in the same town with, gone to school with, or traveled with these people. But I have no memory of them.
They, on the other hand, seem to remember me pretty well. Well enough to find me on Facebook, be stoked about it, and talk to me everyday. I don't want to let them down. That would be a cruel thing to do.
Besides, it's nice to think I can make an impression...apparently, without even trying.
