Name: Bud Heaton
When and where: Sunday, September 27, 2015 at Fifth Element, Newport, RI
Beverage: red wine
Last time we met in person: probably 2 weeks ago
Friends on Facebook: since 2010
Friends in real life: since 2000

On Saturday night, my husband Chris and I were talking about Facebook. He deleted his account some time ago as it was all getting too much for him, but has recently come back, and is keeping it manageable by only having 33 friends, all of whom he has met and most of whom he has shared a beer with at some point. I, on the other hand, currently have 356 friends, most of whom I’ve met, but in some cases not for a very long time. I have been getting very reclusive and antisocial lately, and Facebook has been my primary source of socialising, so I announced yesterday that I was aiming to get together with as many of my Facebook friends as possible in the next year or so. I liked Chris’ criterion that a Facebook friend should be somebody you’ve shared a beer with, but I’m expanding that to any beverage. I particularly like the idea of having a nice cup of tea and a sit down with somebody.

Although Chris is one of my Facebook friends I’m not counting him, at least not right away. Maybe we’ll purposefully have a special cup of tea and sit down at some point. So last night we got things off the ground, and went out for dinner with my father-in-law Bud Heaton. Although we live in the same town and talk on the phone all the time, and Chris works with him every day, we can sometimes go for weeks not meeting in person, so it was nice to catch up last night. We inevitably talked about the store (which he and Chris run together) but we also had a general gossip about stuff, and it was all very enjoyable.

OK, who’s next?