A Rose In Bloom

Better than I could be. Not as good as I’d planned.

Monday, March 27, 2006

Get Out of my Face(book)
(alternate working title, Get out of Myspace)

I'm an online addict. I am not afraid to admit that. And like most twenty-somethings I use the internet as an enhancement to just about every part of my life. I find new recipes, I chat with friends, I pay my bills, I apartment hunt, I read my news. I've attempted (very unsuccesfully) to do online dating. I've attempted (more successfully) online job hunting. I can't, and won't, get away from the world wide web.

In the past couple of weeks I have been doing some inventory. I have five e-mail accounts. Five! Is that normal? And what is even more freaky is that I have been completely sucked into the wonderful world of online friendship/networking/long-lost-best-friend websites. It started long ago with Friendster. And I was down with that. But now there's Facebook. And most recently there is Myspace. Not to mention the dating website of which I am still (an unsuccessful) member. Updating my profile on all of these places is a job in itself. I feel intense pressure to change my picture when I cut my hair or make sure people know that I now have a job and that no, I'm still not done with my thesis, but I'm content and happy and you should adore me because of these things. AHHHH!!! A few weeks ago Rachel decided she was done with these kinds of internet sites. I can't blame her, but then again she's always been the sane one in this friendship.

And you know what's nuts. I like sitting for hours "searching" for people I once knew. I've become one of those people. And when people want to add me as a buddy I get all excited, like this long lost internet friendship is going to really become something...something bigger than it was in real life. It's a sickness. A sickness I suppose I don't mind having becoem I'm not taking any steps to stop the behavior. If only there was a way to stop all of the crazy men who find my picture to be "hot " and/or "sexy" and think that sending a quick e-mail full of run on sentences is going to be the way to steal my heart. If I could make that stop it might help. Maybe...

3 Comments:

  • At 2:34 PM, Blogger danielle said…

    i have 3 e-mails, an account with friendster, facebook (2 accounts actually), myspace, and the black stripe. i check each one almost hourly.

    you are not alone. maybe we should start a support group for those overly-addicted to social/friend-making/stalking sites.

     
  • At 9:28 AM, Blogger Rachel said…

    I don't disapprove of these sites, per se, I just had had this really eerie conversation with a girl I knew in high school, and she kept talking about all of these people that were on facebook or myspace, and what they were up to, etc. And it occurred to me that people were merely gathering information about me, but were unwilling to interact with me (i.e. phone call or email to say hi...) in the actual world. I find this just more bizarre than I could handle. Hence the quitting.

    But there is something awfully addictive about the whole thing. And I still have the friendster account and 5 (yes 5!!) email accounts, if you count the work one (and I do).

     
  • At 4:40 PM, Blogger Jules said…

    five is normal - more than three makes my head hurt

    and oh, the people searches - i'd be wrecked if anyone knew how often i searched for people who don't know me any more - as if somehow finding them would fix something.

    oops, i felt myself heading into a run-on sentence there.

     

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