Balls and Walnuts
more than you ever wanted to know
Who are these women, and why do they want to be my friends?
A little over a year ago, I listened to Daisy Dexter Dobbs and set up a MySpace page. Daisy suggested it would drive more traffic to Balls and Walnuts, but I don’t know. I haven’t seen much action coming my way from MySpace. I guess I should be adding content over there, but it would be yet another daily chore. I can’t be bothered.
See, here’s what I don’t understand: who the hell are all these beautiful young women who want to be my friends? If they’re real, then my “Men” post the other day is complete and utter bullshit.
But I don’t think they’re real. I think they’re trying to sell me shit.
Here’s my newest friend, Rachael. I can’t see her too well, but what I can see doesn’t look too shabby. And she wants to be my friend. In fact, on her nearly unreadable profile — baby blue font on a cream background — she says, “Can’t we all just be friends?” So maybe she wants to be everyone’s friend, and maybe I’m just an asshole for deleting her from my list. She certainly has a lot of guy friends. Do I have to become her friend to find out what she’s selling?
She wants to “meet a nice hot guy with a personality to match his looks.”
She’s “currently reading Little Women for the hundredth time.”
But I still don’t believe there’s any there there.
Am I being paranoid? Is there something happening on MySpace which I just don’t get?
Then there’s Anne. She wants to be my friend. She says she likes “Dancing Queen or any other wedding reception music,” and she wants to meet “George Bush so I could punch him.” Has the FBI questioned her yet? Will they come and question me, too, if I become her friend?
Anne has four comments on her profile. Three are ads, but the fourth links back to a guy named Chip who is “clean and sober and learning to have fun without drinking.” So, I dunno, maybe Anne’s for real. No blog, though. If I can’t read more of her stuff, how can I trust her?
Anne writes, “I don’t need you to understand me I just need you to accept me.”
But I can neither understand nor accept her.
Next is Alexis, who I think is Anne’s twin sister. Alexis wants to be my friend, too.
Anne has 67 friends, all of them guys. She likes “comedies, overall, but I will watch anything, really.” She’s a fan of Grey’s Anatomy. Hold on, that sounds familiar. Rachael likes Grey’s Anatomy, too! But Anne doesn’t. So much for that theory.
Is Alexis for real? Are any of these people real? I have this theory that if they’re real, they’ll notice I’ve linked to their profile. They’ll come to this post and leave a message. So leave a message, Alexis, twin sister of Anne and Rachael! If you really want to be my friend, it’s not that much to ask.
Here’s another oddity: all three women say, “I don’t want kids.” Is this a well thought-out bit of strategy designed to attract horny, commitment-phobic men?
I wonder if Erika wants kids.
Hmph. She doesn’t want kids, either. But at least she doesn’t like Grey’s Anatomy. She has tons of guy friends, too, except for that one Pekingese. But are there any clues on Erika’s MySpace profile to suggest she’s more real than a WoW NPC*? Let’s see . . .
She wants to meet ” MORRISSEY, James Dean, Sienna Miller and Hillary Clinton.” Okay.
She writes, “I love to SHOP! Seriously I spend way to much money on clothes and shoes . . . oh ya and PURSES!”
She likes to “listen to everything except super angry rock and punk.”
Her favorite books are written by “Nicklous Sparks.”
I can’t help but think I’m reading profiles assembled with a shredder, the personality equivalent of William S. Burroughs’ cut-up technique, and that these hodge-podge personae have been randomly fitted to the faces of four beautiful women. It’s like the Playboy Centerfolds, all those likes and dislikes, turn-ons and turn-offs. Everyone knows the models don’t write those bits. I suspect Cosmo does the same thing for their cover girl profiles. Anything truly unique and interesting gets deleted, shazam! and replaced, American cheese replacing Gruyere. The product is pre-packaged person, something both better and far worse than the real thing.
Remember the story I told about the PR gal who called me when I first got into town? She wanted to interview me for the hospital’s newsletter. She asked, “Why did you become a doctor?”
“Like many doctors,” I said, “oh, hell, probably MOST doctors, I have extremely poor self esteem. I find that the only way I can keep from despising myself is to have a constant stream of positive reinforcement from patients telling me how godlike I am.”
Silence from PR gal.
“And I wanted to help people,” I said.
“‘Wanted . . . to help . . . people,'” she said. Her relief was palpable. Square peg, meet square hole.
So I’ve concluded these women aren’t real. Oh, they’re real in the sense that someone had to pose for those pictures. Kind of like my deck of Asian Beauty playing card models, topless gals forever immortalized as clubs, diamonds, hearts, and spades. They’re real enough to me, even though they must be in their sixties or seventies by now.
But why are they there, these MySpace women? As far as I can tell, the only thing they’re trying to hawk is the ad copy at the top of each page.
Oh, fuck it all anyway. If I want to watch an ad, it should at least be entertaining.
D.
*World of Warcraft non-player-controlled character. But come to think of it, some of those computer-controlled characters are pretty real to me. I would do Jaina Proudmoore in a heartbeat.
Hey, none of them have asked to be my friend. Maybe I like Little Women, too.
i would be your friend. except i can’t find you. what name are you under? my display name is currently shaina-kabaina if you want. i only use myspace for the “bulletins” feature, cuz people post huge meme survey things that are an AMAZING timewaster….:-D
Kate: I think they only like Big Men. They’re in for a big surprise if they ever meet me!
Shaina, I sent you a friend invitation thingy-whatsit.
Hi Doug! I clicked on your link above and was taken to the blog on my myspace… and I couldn’t find you, either 🙁 I’m princessneroli there, as with everywhere else.
As to odd friend requests, I usually ignore them for about three days, and if they are spam, the friend request will come up “this profile has been deleted”
Of course, I prefer to at least sort of know anyone I add as a friend (internet friends count), so I will never have thousands of myspace friends, but that’s the way I like it.
Weird! I wonder where my MySpace page is? Gotta say, this is not an easily navigated system.
That URL must work for me at home since I have the username/password all set up. I’ll have to add you later, li’l princess 😉
I’m afraid of MySpace. I made a page, like you, but it’s bare bones. I never sign in, so I might have dozens of fake girls asking to be my friend, and never know it.
The ad with the kid? Awesome.
I started playing on MySpace a few weeks ago and Viola, lots of friend invites. But you can tell they are bad fakes when you get 4 in one day from different names and the same pictures. I got on someones mailing list. Another group are the “nice” marketers. They actually have blog enteries and tell you that this is their “professional” modeling page and this is how to get hold of their agent. They even occasionally post a bulletin other than “new semi-naked pictures at http://www…payme.com“.
OK, some are real professional people – I like the body painters and tattoo artists – nice art and they are looking to be actually hired in person to draw, tattoo, or be painted on and undressed. And they will reply to intelligent comment. “Your hot” does not count as a complete quality message.
Say_Oy
Ooooo. I’m gonna go find you. I do most of my internet stuff over there these days and mainly lurk most other places. I do occasionally update my MySpace blog, so I will send you a friend request if I find you.
I agree that the random MySpace bots are weird. I get a few. I set my profile up so that a person has to know either my last name or my email address to send a friend request. That has cut down on the requests. That would probably work for you. Folks who know you from here know your last name and the bimbos probably don’t. All of my “friends” are people I actually know. A couple are just people I know through the internet, but most of them are people I know in real life.
You should see some of the messages I get from men. It is not as bad as it used to be since I removed “dating” as one of my objectives, but I still get the occasional guy, usually married, who feels the need to share his “measurements.”
I get ALOT of MySpace spam. Lots of “hot” women/girls, a few guys who want to sell me skateboarding equipment, and a few musicians and artists. I also get alot of “event” invitations for webcam stuff. Bo-ring! I even got a virus, once! Somebody put some messed up code on my profile that would “grab” the viewer, and sometimes crash their browser! Lucky for me, a lil cutey (now she was hot!! Yummi!!) I met at another site showed me how to fix it.
Thornesplace at MySpace. (large pic of my back tattoo)
Hey Doug! Wasn’t this you:
26 Twelve inches separated Dr. Brad Berkowitz from heaven.??
Renee, I couldn’t find you with the Search function!
Da Nator, mine’s bare bones, too. Until I figure out what this thing is good for, I’m not inclined to invest too much effort. This is my real home.
Say_Oy: Oy! Sorry. I bet you get that a lot. I’m on my way to your place as we speak. Erm, write.
(Say_Oy’s a spanker! My, I really do attract them, don’t I? I guess they sense my intense need for discipline.)
KariBelle, is that your page with all the Audrey Hepburns on it, or is that another KariBelle?
Thorne, I’m having trouble finding you, too. Make it easy. Gimme a URL. Or just go to my link and invite from there. And yup, that one was mine. Sorry you didn’t make it 🙁
Mine wasn’t all that snazzy… I’m so glad that yours made it!@! I can’t wait to read the next lines. Very cool. I’m going to go add you. I forgot about the email thingy. I did that after I got the virus. email: thorne@hartjoy.com
K. Gotcha!! Haha!! The lil Hottie I justa told you helped me fix my page over there just posted a cute comment on thornesplace. MmmmmmMmm. I think you’ll like it! 😉
Nope. I am not quite the Audrey Hepburn type, lol. My real name is Karen and since most of my MySpace friends know me in the real world I use that one there. I usually use KariBelle out in the cyber world because it seems like wherever I go there is already a Karen. The joys of having a common name! I found you and I sent you a friend request.
I requested to be your friend a while back. Guess I’m not gorgeous enough. Hah!