Dan's Papers - August 29, 2008

I'm not really sure if I'm allowed to be on Facebook now that I am turning 26 this week. I'm also a little worried about having to rename this column in four years, when I guess it will be called "Thirtysomething." I don't want to have to do that.

Quite possibly the defining website of my generation has been the social networking website, www.facebook.com. I used to think that the website I would talk about with my future kids was www.napster.com, the music sharing website, but Steve Jobs, somehow, some way, got people to pay for music when they could easily download it for free.

Facebook, which was started by a kid at Harvard named Mark Zuckerberg, who I hope to meet in person one day, has kind of changed my life. The main reason is how much time I have wasted on this website wondering what people I have not seen for over 15 years are doing. It's crazy how often I check this website.

I find myself looking at pictures of somebody I knew in grade school and being fascinated by them. I'll look at a picture of some exotic trip they took to Australia and think to myself, Gosh darn it, I want to go to Australia! Why is this person's life so much cooler than mine? Then I make a mental note to explore flights to Australia later on in the day. Maybe I can get a deal.

I do not have a single "friend" on Facebook that is not an out-of-control partier, either. For some reason, nearly everyone who uses Facebook, which is just about everybody, posts pictures of themselves out at a nightclub or partying out at a bar. Is everybody really having that good of a time? But sure enough, I take advantage of any opportunity that I get to post pictures of myself out on the town.

But now that I am 26, Facebook seems a bit immature. After all, it was originally designed for college kids, and now that it is open to people of all ages, it still feels like a website for college kids. Can I let Facebook go? I cannot - it is way too interesting of a website - but I now feel like the old guy on Facebook.

There are some downsides to turning 26, especially when a lot of your friends have all gone out and gotten a higher education, like a law degree or something like that, and you're still doing pretty much the same thing that you have been doing since you graduated college. The main thing about turning 26, however, is I am now officially closer to 30, which I was pretty sure was never going to happen.

I'm guessing that turning 27 is going to be even weirder then turning 26. Turning 28 will probably be okay with me, because most people that I know that are 28 years old seem pretty happy. Most of their buddies are older than them and most of the guys that are in their early twenties get paid way less then they do. So my thinking is that 28 will be a good age, but 26? What the heck happens when you are 26? You're still kind of too young to get married, and you're still just starting out with your career. What an annoying age. I'm going to make being 26 cool.

The upside of this age is that you feel a lot more mature and smarter then most people in college, which has got to be the weirdest feeling in the world. I'll talk to kids in college and think to myself that they are really just kids. The other strange thing is that all the rookie cops in town are younger then me. I just can't think of a cop as being younger then me. A cop is always supposed to be older, in my opinion. That should be a rule.