Jackson Free Press

I'm new to MySpace, so there are some things that take some getting used to.

The sparkly pink butterflies aren't a problem--I see sparkly pink butterflies every time I'm on deadline and forget to sleep--but I seem to get a lot of weird unsolicited Friend requests from strange women in bikinis who sometimes address me with solicitations like "hello darling." (Conway Twitty would be proud.) Not always being able to remember my friends' faces, I click the profile, which invariably falls into one of the following categories:

70% "Give me your credit card number and watch my webcam!" (Sorry, but no.)

10% "I am looking for good American man. I clean good house, make good whoopee." (Sorry, but HELL no.)

10% "Hey, I was reading your profile and you're cute..." (If you were really reading my profile, you would have noticed that (a) I'm not that cute and (b) I'm here for "Networking, Friends," not "Dating, Relationships.")

10% other

The most disturbing category is the mysterious 10% "other," where the woman (or, occasionally, man) invariably looks like a model, the photo invariably looks like it was done by a seedy glamour studio, and yet there's absolutely nothing in the profile to suggest that this person is Friending me out of anything but an earnest desire to be my buddy. Did I meet this person somewhere and then forget who she was? Did HotStuff83 come to Jackson to participate in Mississippi Reproductive Summer '06, then go back to her home in Santa Barbara and her exciting modeling-aromatherapy career fascinated with my rugged Mississippi charm?

I almost feel guilty clicking Deny on these people, because you never know. The model good looks are not necessarily a clue; my real friends are generally much cuter than my fake ones anyway. (You're welcome.) And some of them even wear bikinis. (I'm looking at you, Scott.) So somewhere, there probably is a BambiLoveless25 who really is crying in her cleavage because she has been rejected by the great and mighty Tom Head.

Well, I like to think so, anyway.

This would all be so much easier if it happened at the grocery store, because then I could strike up a conversation and learn very quickly whether the strange woman who just walked up to me and asked "Hi, can I be your friend?" is someone I actually want to know. But on MySpace, I see through a glass darkly--and the glass is usually half empty.

Au revoir, SandraDD38, au revoir. Á tout á l'heure! Á la prochaine! Adieu!

Previous Comments

ID

107514

Comment

Bump. This is my Ali Greggs tribute column. Happy birthday, you--and from the bottom of my almost-out-of-the-twentysomethings heart, thanks for making 30 look so good! Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-09-09T13:08:43-06:00

ID

107515

Comment

Tom, you should YouTube the "MySpace" movie. It's all about the angles. ;)

Author

emilyb

Date

2006-09-09T13:10:14-06:00

ID

107516

Comment

Oh, this is brilliant... I especially like the last clip, because it answers a question I always had about that default "Tom" guy! Cheers, TH

Author

Tom Head

Date

2006-09-09T13:24:42-06:00