Don't look in there!

I have a MySp.ace. It doesn't have anything on it, doesn't even have
my real name. I made it to help a friend spy on her kid and the nutjob
teenagers he hangs out with. Along the way, I've found that Isabel's
young 17 y.o. cousin was not shy about posting pics of herself with a
vodka bottle and bragging about how often she gets drunk, and the
neighbor kid making up pretty much everything on his profile, but I
think that is expected. As you look around, from one profile to
another, the other thing that becomes apparent is a lot of white
suburban teenaged girls think they are Jay-Z. They be thuggin' "4
realzz"! It would be a lot more comical if it weren't so
tragic/pathetic. Consider, if a few of them were doing it; ha ha, very
funny. Since pretty much all of them have a gangsta rap song playing,
(thank you dial-up, I shut them down before they get started), a few
slutty mirror pix, and the requisite "Where my niggaz at? Hollla!!" in
the comments header, there is a lack of irony that is awe-inspiring at
this "place for friends to meet and greet" - or whatever the slogan
is. There is no interaction other than tagbacks for each others
photos, and half conversations through the log, interspersed with a
few sad "add me" type comments. Oh, there are features available to
make it much better like the blog and photojournal and .... well, I
never looked into it too much, like most MySp.acers.

If you saw the piece on "The Daily Show", then you know what I'm
getting at. You have 9000 friends, now what? I'm not here to review
MySp.ace dot com, but I will offer some tips for the 2.6 teenagers
that might read this: Stop talking about things that you do (or don't
do but are lying about to look cool) that you don't want your parents
to know about. Your parents know your name, they gave it to you.
Create a different profile under a fake name and do all that crap,
just tell your 'friends' to only visit with their fake profiles,
because these things are all interconnected and as much of a Net savvy
edge as you think you have over your parents, they know people like me and likely much better to help them figure these things out. Also, don't add everyone that asks, ask them why first.

I was here in the box the other night, (here's where the title comes
in), and thought of someone I hadn't thought of in many years. Not
sure what made me think of her, but I thought of the way I found
someone that was hiding in MySp.ace for my friend a few weeks ago.
(Teenager was smart enough to use fake name and 'where from' and all
that; but put her actual high school, which just so happens is not in
fake city OK, but right here in NC where we left it.) Anyway, I
trundled over to MySp.ace and tapped in the info: high school, name,
years attended, alumni >>> there she wasn't. Huh. Imagine that, a 36
y. o. woman that doesn't have a MySp.ace. Here is where it gets odd.
As I am there looking at all the Melissas that aren't her, it occurs
to me to try and find a girlfriend from long ago. I couldn't remember
if I ever knew what high school she went to as she was about 7 years
older than I when I was 19 and we started dating; so I went with her
slightly uncommon first name just to start with. Not good, a lot more
than I would have thunk. I flip through the pages and it is obvious
that none of these are she. It then broken bulbs on me to look for her
daughter, who was 4 the last time I saw her. She would be 17/18 now,
very likely to have a MySp.ace. I guess I thought that her Mom would
probably have one too, as some of the parents I know do, for keeping
tabs as I mentioned earlier. What I didn't think about was what it
would feel like if I were to find her. What it would feel like to find
the little girl that used to light up my face, but that I had no
contact with after her Mother and I broke up. What it would feel like,
to find that little face-lighter-upper that barely acknowledged me the
last time I saw her, about a year later. Well, I didn't find that
little girl, I found an 18 y. o. girl with favorite songs, favorite
movies, a boyfriend, and a rather impressively IRL-based friend list.
If I had human emotions I would have cried. Instead, I stared into her
eyes for a bit, trying to think it wasn't her, perhaps thinking that
would be better than having found her. Of course, I would have
continued looking, compulsively. But it was her, no doubt. [We both
like that band, tee hee.] Do I think she (and her Mother) were much
better off with whatever life has brought them in the last 14 years
without yours truly? Indubitably. Is it still horribly sad to think
that maybe you missed out on what your life was supposed to be? Yep.