The reason this is a little confusing is because the forum software's idea of "friends" is not the typical social networking definition.

On a site like Myspace or Facebook, you typically need to agree to be on someone else's "friends list." So there's only one list of people who you've approved as your "Friends" (because its public information).

Here, none of this is public information -- nobody can see your address book except you and nobody knows who has added you to their address book.

So there's two lists we all have:

1. People we've friended (our address book)
2. People who've friended us (their address book)

The listing shown on the profile page with photos of your "friends online" are people *you* have friended (e.g., members of your address book) online at the moment. There is currently no way of seeing the list of people who've added you to their address book... and the more I think about this, I think that's the way it should be. It could cause unwanted/unnecessary hurt if people saw who it was who added them to their address book (and those who didn't).

DocJohn