Perhaps someone's spending too much time online?

I had a dream last night. (No, not that I would begin an entry with a wretched cliche - just indulge me on that, okay?) Laurie and I were going to throw a dinner party with another family, and Laurie had just left for the store to pick up a few final items.

Our guests arrived early, but they weren't the close friends I'd expected. Instead, they were college friends of Laurie's, who just happened to be in town, I guessed. Then the doorbell rang again. It was a high school friend of mine, with her children. But where were my kids? Were they upstairs with their friends? I realized that I didn't know where they were, only that they were not at the party.

More people arrived: People who worked with former colleagues, but whom I hadn't met. High-school classmates of Laurie's, whom I'd met at a reunion. Someone who'd been reading my website and wanted to say hi.

No point in waiting to eat now, I thought. I told folks to dig into the food set up in the kitchen. But the crowd had spilled out of the kitchen now and into the living room. I sent a few guests down to the garage to bring up extra tables. As I was setting them up, I wondered: why wasn't I getting any updates from Laurie? Where was she?

A former girlfriend arrived, one with whom I hadn't communicated in years. We said nothing about ourselves or about why we'd made no attempt to contact each other for more than 20 years, only small talk about other people we barely knew, in and out of the room. Then her sister showed up, someone I'd not spoken to once in my life.

By this time, the entire house was packed. Hundreds of people from the periphery of our lives had crowded our home, but still there was no word from Laurie and no sign of my kids. No sign, either, of the family friends we'd expected.

I awoke, and wondered just what the heck that dream could have been about. Then I realized, oh my Lord, I just had a dream about Facebook.

Robert Niles also can be found at http://www.themeparkinsider.com