Facebook's Weighty Appeal

It seems to me that the main point of Facebook is to see how fat everyone has gotten. I originally joined because my mom sent me a request be her Facebook Friend. I found out later that she had accidentally sent Friend requests to everyone in her e-mail address book, including her congressman and the tech support guy at Dell. In any case, I could hardly say no to my mom so I created an account. Almost immediately I got Friend requests from several members of my family, followed by requests from some of their Friends and so on. People I haven't seen in decades were asking to be my Friend. Why? Some of these were people I wasn't especially good friends with in the real world. Which brings me to my original point: Facebook, at least as far as adults are concerned, is primarily a way to see how fat the people you knew in high school and college have gotten, without revealing your own expanded waistline. That's why most people upload lots of photos of their kids and pets to their profile, but very few of themselves, and especially no full body shots revealing the extent of what twenty years with a slowing metabolism has done to them.

Someone needs to build a Facebook application where you can just let everyone know how much weight you've gained (or lost...yeah, whatever) since you knew them. You would enter what your weight was for various years, and when you get new Friends you can specify the years you knew them and it would automatically let them know that "Evan has gained 197 pounds since you knew him in fifth grade." Maybe it could soften the blow by including, "He's also a couple of feet taller so that helps make up the difference." Of course, for people you knew later on you won't have the benefit of significant height increase to account for the excess weight. "Evan has gained 84 pounds since you knew him in high school. He hasn't grown any taller so that's pretty much all fat. Click here to send him a subscription to Tub Of Goo magazine as a hint that he needs to lose some of that."

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to upload a few more photos of my kids to my profile.

Reflections on My 39th Birthday

When my dad turned 39 years old I was 13. I remember it mostly because I recall thinking that he was 3 times older than me. Coincidentally, my boys turn 3 in March and I'll be 13 times older than them. I don't remember anything specific about my dad at that age but he was (and still is) almost a mythic figure to me. Tall and dark, with a glare that could freeze water, let alone a teenager's spine. At least one of my friends was genuinely afraid of my dad. But I did my best to avoid becoming the target of his glare and, what's more, I knew that underneath was a funny guy. His glare is an expression I have attempted to replicate, to lesser effect, with my boys. Maybe I don't have a dark enough complexion or maybe the boys just aren't old enough yet to appreciate it. I've still got a few years to work on it.

What strikes me most as I think back, is that my dad always seemed to know the answers. I feel like I'm just fumbling in the dark with respect to how to raise children. Occasionally the boys react in a way that makes me think I'm doing something right and in the next instant they prove me wrong. I find in my dad's implacable wisdom a source of comfort. My parents had children at a much younger age than I. I'm sure the extra years of parenting gave them some knowledge that I can only attain after similar years. On the other hand, the simple process of life itself grants wisdom that my parents lacked when they started. The point is that I don't think that my parents were any wiser than I feel. Perhaps that realization is is another step on the path to real wisdom, whatever that is. And I think my parents did a pretty good job. I hope my children will be able to say the same once they're in my position.