Ever since I’ve been web-savvy, I have occasionally searched for… myself, just to see what’s out there about me.  I would usually find my yahoo website, some devotionals I wrote at my church’s website, a cathedral project I did in college, and the M.O.F.L. site (The Mt. Olive Football League, which I ran {and often won} over the past 15 years).  With the advent of Google Scholar, I have recently found my Master’s Thesis online as well (wow, I’m published!).

One day, there were additional entries – entries I couldn’t connect to me, something about coaching soccer at a Michigan university.  Someone else was using my name!  It turns out that there was another “me” in Michigan.  For years, I thought I was unique; after all, there aren’t many people with my last name in the world.  Now there was at least one other on the web, a verifiable presence, and alternate me.  How strange!

With the advent of Facebook, I decided to “friend” him to see what he would do.  He accepted, and we were, for a time, Facebook friends.  It was weird – the other “me” thought so too, which is why he eventually un-friended me.  Now, we just continue to live our parallel lives, and try not to think of each other too much.

These days, there are even more “me’s” out there.  Some have come late in the game with regards to the internet, like “me” of Wisconsin (he spells his name wrong, so Michigan “me” and I will have nothing to do with him!) and… “me” of Wisconsin (two in one state! – this guy’s a bee keeper).  We’ll call him me2.  Then there’s the “me” who runs a laundry service in Pennsylvania; there’s a “NASCAR me” in Indiana; and one, we’ll call him “ludite me,” who does not have much of an internet presence at all – he may not even have a computer – but he got listed in some work-related document.  That “me” works for the Tennessee Valley Authority.

And then there’s a “me” with a one letter difference in the last name who is an author of Windows XP books.  If I ever get published (like, for-real; not just my thesis), boy will people get confused!

Alas, I am hardly unique anymore; I am pedestrian…

Sigh.