I've never been the girl to greet the faces of ten familiar acquaintances, just walking the dog. Nor was I ever the girl who had zilch number of playmates. My identity lay somewhere in the vastness between them. And I was satisfied understanding that much. Until recently.
Having graduated from MSN-aholics Annonymous about two years ago, I know a thing or two about display names. Thus far, I have come across five major kinds:
(1) The girl who advertises her blog site. Yes, that would be me!
eg: love-NOELINE.blogdrive.com
(2) The Plain Jane displaying just their name. They're so popular they need not any artificial fonts, colours, dots, brackets etc. to have people talk to them.
eg: John
(3) The goons addicted to Character Map. Their names are so hard to read I'd have more chances deciphering ancient sea scrolls.
eg: (I'm not even going to waste my time making one up, but you all know what I mean!)
(4) The social chameleons. Just as the chameleon will alternate their colours in a lifetime, these people will change their display names in a day.
eg: BARRY IS A CHAMP. FRED IS MY BEST FRIEND. HANNAH YOU'RE A BABE. DAN I'M ALWAYS HERE FOR YOU NO MATTER WHAT.
(… two minutes later) SALLY AND I ARE PARTY FREAKS. DOMZKIE IS A LOSER! DW I STILL LOVE YA. SHANNON AND JOHN AND MARY MAKE A HOT THREESOME.
(5) The smitten, head over heels in puppy love - type people. Most will flaunt an extravagant arrangement of love hearts (<3 and s2), anniversary dates, lyrics from love songs etc. Fret not, for this method does have it's advantages!
Gone are the days where it could take as long a year for people to realise the end of your coupledom… when you've got an MSN nickname for all to see?!
eg: Mary s2's John 24.4.03 [forever and ever babe] No one else comes close to you.
to
Mary
Having always been most intrigued by display name numero 5, I decided to conduct an experiment of my own. I always wondered whether the last example worked. Would genuinely depressed people post such a thing on the internet? (If so, I suggest that all accounts be compulsorily fitted with a contact from the Kids Helpline!) I couldn't help but perceive these people as attention seekers. Their real life counterparts are the idiots who cut themselves and flaunt it like the new black. Is that a paradox I can smell?
And do all of ones contacts really 'FUCK OFFFFFF'? Because like you're average classroom, there's that kid that will do exactly the opposite of what is asked of them.
A few weeks ago, as some of you may be aware, my display name went from example number 1, to example number 5 - and then some. My display names were along the lines of
"YOU COULD HAVE BEEN THE ONE. I HATE MYSELF. I JUST WANNA DIE! I FEEL SO DEPRESSED!" to "THE PAST 15 MONTHS MEANT NOTHING TO ME! I HATE YOU! EVERYONE JUST FUCKING LEAVE ME ALONE PLEAAAASEEEE!!!"
…all whilst annoyingly signing in and out simultaneously.
In the span of one minute I had 17 random people instigated a conversation with me. Not friends. Randoms! The kind of people who pulled my email address from the magician's hat, or friends of friends I don't talk to. These people were suddenly regurgitating phrases like 'I'm always here for you' and 'Tell me what happened, you can trust me'.
And that's when I realised that these 17 'trustworthy' randoms were only there for me for reasons beyond (or should I say below?) genuine concern. They did not care about the status of my relationship, geez they didn't even know the name of my boyfriend. Like the tabloid hungry paparazzi, most of these people just wanted to be the early bird on the latest gossip.
"THANKYOU TO THE 17 RANDOMS WHO ASKED IF I WAS OK. I KNOW WE HARDLY TALK BUT IT'S NICE TO KNOW I HAVE 'FRIENDS' IN CASE I'M EVER EMO"
So here's my verdict. Real friends have your phone number, not just your e-mail address. Real friends are there for you when you're distraught; and even more so when you're jubilant. The social experiment taught me that not only are there fair weather friends, but also gloomy weather friends. Watch out for both.
