internet high school

So, I’ve gotten myself in a hairy mess.

I have this old email address which I check intermittently. I’ve changed it because people thought it was too long (it was kevin_mcdonald_kicks_ass@yahoo.com… I thought it was easy to remember!) I decided to check it today and I got this “invitation” from my friend Cheryl to join this “friendster” ring thingy.

What harm could this do?

Yeah, right. Well, basically, what I have discovered, it is “sort of” a popularity contest. Granted, you can read about people a.k.a “friends” that you haven’t seen in a million years. For me, I sort of have this morbid curiosity about where they’ve been, who they are doing and if they’ve changed at all.

I found, to my surprise, that my friend Cheryl is in L.A. and is a R.N. That was rad.

I also found out that I am only two friends away from my own damn sister.

Here’s a couple things I’ve noticed with this Friendster thing:

1. When I first signed on, it said “you have no friends yet.” SHEESH. Even though, in real life, I have friends, this very comment made me very self-conscious (How many other people know that I have no friends??)

2. When someone decides to be your friend, you get an email that says “So and So has decided to be your friend”…you know as if I was on trial for friendship.

3. There are pictures. If you are a broke ass such as myself, you can’t scan pictures on this thingy to show people what you look like. However, EVERYONE has pictures (even my sister who used a digital photo-album. It just gives me a headache to say digital photo-album) and if YOU don’t have a picture, you get this big ass question mark in place of your face.

As if you weren’t sure of what you looked like.

I looked at prospective photos to put up, and I absolutely have no pictures of myself by myself…because, why the hell am I going to take a picture of myself by myself? So, it seems, at a later date, that I will have to put a picture up of myself with another person. However, most of the pictures I have are with a guy. So I think I’ll put up 4 different pictures with 4 different guys and announce that they are all my boyfriends and I am a damn player. I’m the SHIIIIIIT

yeah, that sounds good.

Oh, the pressure of Friendster.

4. There’s this thing called “Testimonials” wherein you pretty much give accolades and sugary sweet admissions of how much you love “your friend” and how much “your friend” gives you joy.

To my dismay (or gratitude? I can’t be sure yet) I don’t think anyone will give me a testiomonial thingy.

Most of my friends are sardonic and cynical and would probably roll their eyes when they see this forum. However, most of my friends are brilliant writers and I HOPE and PRAY (to my non-entity) that they will write something brilliant, not necessarily about me, but anything. I think that is what I will insist.

Further, this testimonial thingy makes me nervous. Do I look like a loser if nobody says anything? (Or if somebody says nothing?)

It’s like internet high school. Why did I open this box?