Friendster vs Blogger

It's just about time to push myself back.

Feeding the ego has never been more fun online as it never was offline. This is mostly true if your personality had the appeal of roadkill. Not that you're ugly or anything, but your charms leave much to be desired.

What makes it fun is that you don't need to be specifically goodlooking to be interesting. Give yourself a shot captured in an angle that makes things ten times cuter than they actually are, post that as your online identifier, and your all set. You learn how to Photoshop images, you become skillful in blurring out imperfections and capturing photographs with lighting that makes your complexion noticeably fairer than it actually is.

You might have stolen other people's photographs and claimed their handsome faces as your own.

You've mastered the magic of deception in your campaign for online popularity. The people in your friends list love you for it. The people in their list, in turn, find you an attractive little package with the suggestive powers of a few faked photos, and then they want you in their list.

You then develop a steady following. Your friends list grow to a hundred, two hundred, three hundred. You might have considered opening a second Friendster account to accomodate all these people who want you in their list because like you, they also believe in the transference of cool. The more people you have in your list, the more popular you appear to become, and the more friendster accounts you log into indicate the increasing appeal of your online self. Your ego is fed with every Invitation you approve of. Your satisfaction burps with every Testimonial you allow in your list.

Your happy and sweet and all that creamy goodness in your fake little world. What makes it funny is that you're successful as a super poser in a world where appearances matter more. What makes it funnier is you allowing all this deception to bloat your ego.

Blogging makes for a different kind of gratification. It is actually the kind of satisfaction certain people approve of since it acknowledges the creative self. And by creative self, I'm referring to brain output, the intellect, and nothing, not even doctored images, beats that kind of validation. Yeah, fake pictures require both skill and creativity, but the satisfaction is still on a different playing field all the same.

And what's good about it is that there's no cheating it. You're either an interesting writer, or you're not. You're either an effective writer, or you're not. You either have something to say, or you don't. People might actually care about what you're blogging for, or they don't. Your readers might return for a second helping of what you're serving, or they don't.

It's pretty much that black and white.

See, what makes blogging a whole plenty of different is that your blog becomes an outlet of your inner bastard writer. It creeps to the attention of well-meaning readers until it arrests them and makes them stop to read more. It begins to charm its way to the hearts of certain people. They begin to comment. And then they begin to comment on the rest of your posts until they've confessed to actually liking what you're writing about. They admire you as the bastard that you really are, and then you feel much better.

As a blogger, people actually browse through what you have to say.

You sigh in relief because no matter what you do, there's just no concealing stupid. And you're not hiding anything with your writing. So you sigh more. You even grin with the understanding that you never needed to fake your output. People appreciate you in the raw.

Of course, you can still go on ahead and plagiarize somebody else's writings and claim it as your own. But seriously, where's the fun in that?

That being said, you then look at your clock and find out you've been online for more than the healthy number of hours. Do something offline. Find time to masturbate.

Ow!

I'm sorry if I haven't been a visible blogger as of the late, but I am still a writer all the same. I had a lot of issues written down, and I'm still figuring out how to dispense my notes in a way that will preserve my... my... what's that word again?

This one's written in the afternoon of June 27, 2006.

I don't think I've had bad relationships in the past. What I know is that I AM bad in any relationship. I just don't make it work. Let's say the relationship is this three month fetus in the womb, and I am, for all the wrong reasons, pro-life.

Okay, so that's a bad reference. But it works.

I have this great wealth of cynicism in me, and it surfaces from time to time to work against by benefit. See, this is how it works in the real world: Pessimism is not good in a relationship. And I'm his universal poster child.

Therefore, I'm not good in a relationship.

I have all this room for doubt, and I make sure I dispense it in generous amounts. I bitch, and I've had all that practice in cold shouldering, and then I bitch more. My temper trends, and I make for the best anecdote in unfaithfulness. If infidelity was a whiny little bastard boy, let's say that three months just ain't enough to discipline the sonofabitch.

See me in the pool hall in two hours. With the way I slammed the door when he left ten minutes ago, it looks like I'll be needing a lot of therapy.

At this point, I really don't care if he comes back.

We talked later that evening, and I cooked up this fantastic song and dance about how apologetic I am for being all that blah earlier that day. Minus this little intermission number where punches were thrown and hair was pulled, we still agreed to see each other the next day. I was unharmed. He was pissed over some other dude.