MySpace Replaces Real Life Dating?

Browsing myspace is a big time killing, mind numbing experience. Especially when it isn't my personal myspace (all those people are witty and beautiful, of course). My fiance is taking a nap and my aquarium rocks are still soaking in bleach, and will be until all the algae is gone.

I'll find the occasional chain letter and it's just so preposterous, it'll be funny. 99 times out of 100, though, it's just the same mashed potatoes with different gravy. No one is going to kill you, you are not going to die, and your phone won't ring after you repost this. Chicken, beef and turkey.

Click. Read. Go back to bulletin list.
Click. Read. Go back to bulletin list.
Click. Read. Go back to bull -- WAIT.

I had to read this bulletin twice:

Subject: Girlfriend
Body: i want one...ive been single for over a year now n it sucks...who want's to go out with me???

Atrocious spelling and grammar aside, look deep inside to reach new levels of pathetic.

This raises 2 questions for me:

1.) Is this what Internet dating has come to?
2.) How would something like this be feasible if the Internet (and myspace) did not exist?

Let's hunker down and see if we can't answer these questions and maybe come to the conclusion that I'm either too old to understand this (and not think it's lamer than a cripple with no arms) or there are levels of desperation in the world so deep that my skull wants to explode from the outside pressure of them.

I see a lot of commercials for eHarmony and I'd listen if I wasn't going "HEY THAT'S ORVILLE REDENBACHER, I THOUGHT HE WAS DEAD?!", but I have gathered enough information to know that you have to fill out some long-winded profile that matches you on 800,001 levels of compatibility. I doubt question 1 - 150million is phrased like this:

"Have you been single for a year? Does it suck? Do you want a GIRLFRIEND?"

Conversely, probing inquiries about what you like to do on the weekend and what kind of music you prefer require far too much commitment and thinking. If you can't meet and love a guy who just wants to go out with you because being single for a year sucks, I think you need to just get right off that high horse, missy, and join the rest of us in the real world.

VERDICT: I'm too old and I think it's lame. Push me back 10 years and I'd be the perfect age, all while still thinking it was lame.

This myspace bulletin posting specimen is 18 years old. He may be in school, I don't know. From his spelling and grammar, he should be in school still and for a long time to come.

So let's say he's a TWELFTH GRADER. There are 3 years of girls that'll give him automatic cool points because he's so grown up and can vote and go to war, which is so hot. If buying 3.2 beer at 18 were still legal in Ohio, I bet some of the boys would be warm for his form, too. He's given this being single thing a lot of thought and came to a serious resolution: It sucks.

He now lacks a public forum where he can type this revelation out to a large group of people he doesn't really know. He patiently waits for the next pep assembly, all the while living with this horrible suck of not going out with anyone. The band does their thing, the football players run around, the cheerleaders jump up and down, and last but not least, he strolls to the middle of the orange gym with the ever embracing hint of sweat still in the air. He approaches the microphone with no emotion except "I hope someone goes out with me after this,.. and puts it all out there.

He clears his throat.

"Girlfriend.

I want one."

The crowd listens in a little closer.

"I've been single for over a year now and it sucks. Who wants to go out with me?"

Of course, he has to stand there until he gets a reply. I don't know exactly WHEN he should stop standing there. Maybe after everyone's had time to comprehend what he said, decided it was just strange, and then left? There'll be other pep assemblies.

You can also insert "employee meeting at Marc's discount stores" for pep assembly. Right after the "Please flush the toilets in the customer bathrooms after use," but wayyy before "You can't punch out for ANYONE EVER."

VERDICT: Without the Internet, a message like this would never have been conveyed. He would never find anyone to go out with and certainly never anyone to breed with.

My children would not have to put up with his malformed crops and the world would be a better place.