Thursday, December 29, 2005

this just in.

friendster is addictive.

why did it take me a year and a half to figure this out? i signed up back in grad school and promptly forgot about it, until i got a random friendster email yesterday. with this being The Week that Time Forgot here in nonprofitland, i figured i'd kill some time and check it out.

holy crap, there are a lot of people that i know on friendster! people that i knew in college. people that i knew in high school. people that i used to date. people that i used to hate. people that i still hate. people that i hardly know, but am slightly obsessed with regardless.

it's very interesting, and yet slightly disconcerting at the same time. i don't know if it's the time of year, since usually around new year's eve you find yourself looking forward, not backward. i am trying to be good about looking forward, about using the new year as a catalyst (however stereotypical!) for potential change in my life. and yet here i am, three days before that new year arrives, poring over pictures of people with whom i haven't spoken in years, or people i have no real desire to ever speak to again. there's something very contradictory there. and yet i can't stop! so many strange, dust-covered memories to dig out, so many forgotten moments and character traits and facial expressions to resurrect.

what are these people to me now? and what am i to them? this little website has suddenly wiped away miles and arguments and years. it could be entirely irrelevant, or it could be crucial. i haven't decided yet.

but i keep clicking away, fascinated.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have a friendster account, but I don't use it. How do you go about finding people you're not already in touch with (i.e. the people you can invite to join because you have their e-mail addresses)?

kate.d. said...

if you know their first and last name, just type that in to the search bar in the upper right hand corner. though the profiles don't display last names, you register with them, so it can find people that way.

if you don't know first and last names, you have to get a little more web ninja. though for some reason friendsters "hometown" and "location" searches are not really working. hopefully they fix that, so i can continue to kill time in a highly unproductive way.