Privacy

Howdy Y'all...haven't blogged at you in a while, and I know it's been terrible for both of us. But methinks it's time to start the healing, and begin fresh anew. Hence; blog.

Now this may ruffle some feathers -- I'm treading into territory that is dangerously "un-interesting," a place I try to avoid like Hepatitis A or C. It may also offend some...and to those I say: "Hi! Would you like a candy cane?" But here goes. On with the inane.

My new least-favorite thing to see on the Internets: "This profile is set to private. This user must add you as a friend to see his/her profile." Now, let's stay frosty here -- I realize there are a few of my friends who have selected this option and I just don't know it (having added this person previously). And to those good people, I beg your collective pardons.

But here's my problem, and I will give you an example: here. Now, this is a young lady named "Lisa" who went to my high school. Say I was friends with this Lisa in high school, and I wanted to talk to her again. I'd send her a message, right? Problem is, there were about 7 or 8 Lisa's attending the 'Moor. So I try to find out if this is the one I knew, or the snotty one who'd take me on a nostalgia trip down "Pretty-Girls-Who-Ignore-You-Then-Laugh-At-You-With-Her-Friends-When-You-Walk-Away" Lane. Take a look at that picture. I can tell she has a head, that probably has hair on it. And a neat blue vest. That's about it. I'm not about to bother someone who probably doesn't want to talk to me with a message or "friend request" because, frankly, I've got a ton of knitting left to do -- this sweater is not going to kitchener stitch itself.

So I have to contact this person directly to find out these little dumb things, right? Well, here's the problem -- what if I thought I was friends with this "private" person, but they didn't feel the same way? I send a friend request, or message...and it's ignored, or deleted. I don't know about you, but for me that's a bit of a downer. Plus, it makes me feel like a weird stalker-type person.

Plus, there are people (such as this lady Lisa...whose identity I did finally figure out) that I wasn't exactly friends with, but am sorta' curious about (I went to preschool with her...so I knew of her, but rarely talked to her). For instance, why the heck is she in France? This is interesting to me. Stalking? Boy, I hope not. Lisa would be a thing of interest for about 5 minutes, before it's back to posting pictures of monkeys dressed like humans on my fiancee's page.

So here's what I propose: anyone who makes their profile "private," should be restricted from viewing the sites of people who are not their friends. Seems like a pretty fair shake, yes? If your sole intention of coming to this wonderful little MySpace website is to just talk and post things to your friends, why would you ever want to browse through strangers' profiles?

And y'know, even if there are crazies out there, it's a very simple thing to delete all their incoming messages and friend requests. If you don't entertain the crazies, most of the time they'll go away. I say this having never corresponded with a crazy before...but my gorgeous fiancee gets her fair share. And the strangers she's not interested in talking to go away if she ignores them -- more often than not there are plenty of other asparagus spears in the crazy-person's vegetable garden (sorry -- trying to avoid "fish in the sea" idiom).

Or, really, if you're totally concerned about accidentally dropping some kind personal nugget that will be posted on "stalker-freak.com" my advice would be to just not post personal information on your site. Or, heck, don't even create a site at all. I realize that's a bit like advocating abstinence-only (100% effective BLAH BLAH BLAH), but I mean...c'mon. What are you people afraid of? Honestly, if you're scared, stay away completely.

I dunno'. Maybe I'm just getting twisted around on something trivial. Maybe I've never felt the cold sting of being stalked. Maybe I'm insensitive. Maybe I'm just a moron. Maybe I'm thinking too much about this. Maybe I.........