My name is Tempa and I'm an...

Internet Addict.

It's true. I am addicted...Stay up till 2, butt marks in the computer chair, watery eyes addicted... to the internet.

Here's my story... Growing up, it was never hard for me to make friends. Not to toot my own proverbial horn, but I'm a pretty personable gal and relating to people has never been something I struggle with. Whether it was a group of popular girls discussing the newest Clinique fragrance or a group of library geeks comparing Star Wars sequels, I could usually form some sort of opinion on the subject and jump right in the conversation. Movies, Music, Sports... I could chat with the best of them. Granted, I never knew much about sports, but I could at least make a joke about how crappy the Bears were doing, make a few people laugh and *poof*... I'm in. Making connections, interacting with people, being friendly... it's just always been natural for me. Now, this natural ability didn't make me Prom Queen or crown me Miss Popularity by any means, but I don't remember having many enemies during a time where making enemies came easy.

Fast forward 7 years or so and now, not only do we have to make friends in the real world, but making friends on the internet seems to be the thing to do. I must admit, the idea of meeting people on the Internet still seems weird to me. Somehow, between watching those abnormally cheesy E*harmony commercials and receiving an abundance of "Meet me at Hot or Not" spam emails, I have been duped into connecting with friends via the world wide web. It was about a year ago that I joined my very first online friend database... Friendster.com. Long ago (back in 2004!), Friendster was the be-all-end-all of internet friend cafe's. Now, it seems to be more like the corner table of Denny's at 11:30pm on a Friday. I couldn't be seen there, so I hopped on the bandwagon and rode it all the way to Facebook.. not forgetting, however, to make a quick stop at MySpace... and I have been on that computerized train ever since. I can't stop. I spend hours (or at least a substantial amount of minutes) sifting through people's profiles, checking out their interests, and trying my best to remember names from my 4th grade gifted and talented program. People I haven't seen for years...people I haven't thought of for years...Instantaneously appear on the screen before me and my life is somehow improved.

Don't get me wrong... I know full well that the sole purpose of websites like these is not to reconnect with friends of yore, but really to have an opportunity to show those friends how great your life has turned out to be. The first thing that one is required to do when they join these sites is come up with a profile. This gives you the opportunity to tell the world what you've done with yourself. The subject line looms over the rest of the profile box taunting "About Me..." and in order to fill said profile box, one must suddenly become charming, creative, successful, and develop a fairly keen sense of humor. I've filled in the margins of many an "about me" box and each time I feel like I must be more creative and far more original than the time before. When in reality, if all those who try so hard to fill those boxes with something witty were truly looking for friends, than they would realize that no one gives a crap what they write in the box. You could write something like "I like to smell other people's farts and sleeping in football mascot costumes makes me horny"... it really wouldn't matter. Spending so much time on these websites has given me the profound ability to become fluent in "Netspeak". Let me show you what I mean...

What "About me..." says:
Hey there! I am kind of new to this site, but I thought I'd give it a whirl. I'm a 24 year old, college-educated, young professional. I like painting, writing, playing guitar and anything that requires creativity. I can handle my own out on the town, but a quiet night with popcorn and the couch is just as enjoyable. I work a lot, but try and keep up with health and fitness. Hit me up if you want to talk. Let's see what happens...

What "About me..." means:
Hi. I am 26 years old, work guest service at Kohl's, and have very few friends. I check my e-mail approximately once every ten minutes and spend an unbelievable amount of time on Friendster, Facebook, and MySpace. I really don't do much as far as hobbies and interests go, but I know what the cool people do so I'll just put that. I usually go out about once a month, with the exception of the time I spend at the local Starbucks while I wait for my grandma to finish her workout at Curves. This picture is from some other website, or maybe a magazine. I posted it because I don't want you to know that I actually resemble a Troll Doll circa 1994.

Needless to say, the "About Me..." box can never be trusted. (Except mine... you can totally trust mine!)

The other boxes include some assortment of favorite movies, music, books, and/or TV shows. There is usually some theme between these all, too. "Sisterhood of theTravelingg Pants-Kelly Clarkson", "Josh Groban-Oprah", "Third Day-Three Wishes". You can usually sense what kind of person you're reading about by the movie/music/book/tv show connection.

So, making your profile is an arduous process... but the people that you decide to include as your friends is also a pretty big decision. Aside from including everyone you remember from both your high school and college graduating classes, you have the opportunity to add an endless amount of people to your friends list. You don't want to have too many uglies, unless of course you are, in fact, an ugly. Than you'd want more uglies to make yourself less..well...ugly. Beyond that, if your friend list is filled with half naked men or women, people will think you're a netskank (I made that up, it's not a real thing... but it's catchy, no?). If you have a bunch of names with no pictures, people will assume they are made up names that you have added to make yourself seem far less lonely than you may be in reality. People you've never met will write you messages to the effect of "Hey you. Cool Pic. Let's chat..." Seems a bit forward, don't you think? Walking down University Avenue, I'd be a bit shocked by someone approaching me with "Hey there. Sweet Kicks. Wanna do lunch?" It's just weird.

The idea of the internet friendship database is such a foreign concept for me. But, much like chopsticks and Shakira, it's a foreign concept that I can't get enough of!

G*night friends,
Tempa