I recently made a deal with my girlfriend, and that deal was that I had to watch a chick movie of her choosing with her. It’s only fair, seeing as I made her sit through Cloverfield, Sin City, Saw, and sometime in the near future, Iron Man. It’s not a bad trade, all in all, because now I can probably make it halfway through the NFL season watching only sports and ultraviolent dude movies with her. Last night, though, in accordance with our agreement, I had to watch P.S. I Love You.

While I will admit that it was not bad as far as films go, and I even found it fairly enjyoable, it was possibly the greatest chick flick of all time. I don’t mean great as in “the most appealing to a wide variety of audiences.” I mean great in that P.S. I Love You is more effective at eliciting the desired emotional response from women than any other chick flick in history, which of course is hysterical bouts of sobbing.
Anyone that has seen it knows that film was meticulously engineered to make women cry from beginning to end. It had all the elements that girls go nuts over: a love story, the death of a loved one, and a hot Irish guy who plays the guitar. I bet most girls reading this right now are tearing up just thinking about it.

These movies are bad for a man’s self-image. I might even argue that they are bad for everyone’s self image. They set unrealistic standards for over the top romance that are more or less impossible to meet. Guys are made to feel like their romantic notions aren’t good enough, and girls are made to feel like their guys aren’t good enough either. We all get duped into believing that there are actually people out there that do this stuff. In P.S. I Love You, the freaking guy writes letters from beyond the grave guiding his widow through the grief process and ultimately freeing her to fall in love again. Not to mention he keeps showing up shirtless in her apartment and playing her Irish love songs. Are you kidding me? My wife will be lucky if I leave her the toaster oven and my old shoes when I die.

I get the feeling that a lot of girls grow up thinking that their first kiss will be on a snow spotted mountain top overlooking the ocean, or that their true love will chase them halfway across the world and propose at the base of the Eiffel Tower or something. Maybe for some people that’s how it happens; and then those people have books written about them, and someone makes movies out of those books, and all of the sudden my suggestions for a quiet dinner at Olive Garden just looks like lazy mediocrity. Now what am I supposed to do with my gift card?

It’s not that I don’t believe in romance; I definitely do. To me, romance is putting on nice clothes and going to a dinner you can’t afford, or still kissing someone even though they have a nasty cold, or watching ridiculous movies like P.S. I Love You because it will make the other person happy. That’s real romance… but, admittedly, it would make an awful movie.

My source of income for the past seven months or so has been delivering pizzas for a family run pizza shop in Parkville. When most people think of a “college job” they usually think of that or waiting tables. It’s a great gig for a guy like me; I can wear whatever I want, and I spend most of the night in my car listening to music.

I’m coming to the realization, though, that with gas prices going up, it’s not a good long-term investment. I need to get out relatively soon, but when I eventually do walk away from it, I will walk away with some great life lessons.

The first thing that I learned is that absolutely no one can do math. I am not exempt from that statement either. Here is a pretty typical scenario:

Jane Q. Pizza-Eater orders two pizzas, and the total comes to $14.69. She gives me a $20 bill, and I ask her how much change I should give her (you know, including a nice fat tip for me). Seven out of 10 people cannot answer this question in less than five seconds.

It’s easy on paper ($14.69 plus $2 tip equals $16.69, round up to $17, give me $3 back), but in application it doesn’t go down that way. I think it’s the cents that screw people up. You know all those kids that had trouble with decimals had to grow up sometime, and no one ever taught them. It’s sad, really.

Sometimes they will throw me a curveball, though, and tell me directly how much they want to tip me instead of how much I should give them back. Then I’m the one who has to do the math and my pride in being smarter than everyone else crumbles quickly.

The second life lesson I learned from delivering pizza is that the only people who ever answer the door in a towel are people you don’t want to see wearing a towel. It’d be great if life was more like the movies and every time someone answered the door they were either hot and naked or handing me a beer, but it just doesn’t happen that way.

I know this is a little specific to be considered a “life lesson,” but I think it’s capable of global application. Whenever you’re expecting a hot girl, it’s probably just going to end up being a fat guy. That’s college parties in a nutshell.

This led me, in turn, to my third realization: pizza delivery is solely responsible for the American obesity epidemic.

The shop that I work at isn’t far from Towson, but it isn’t in Towson either. We’re not talking about a customer base of college kids that are working this stuff off at the gym or by walking to class every day. We’re talking about people who order the same thing Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night. We’re talking about people who will order a small pizza, a sub, fries, a bag of chips, and a 2-liter of soda for their own personal dinner.

It really makes me want to change my own eating habits, but it all smells so good sitting in the back of my car that by the time I get home I have forgotten about the glimpse into the obese, grim future I’ve just witnessed.

I haven’t only learned bad things about the world, though. I’m not completely jaded about life just yet.

As much as I have completely lost faith in humanity’s ability to round decimals and not be overweight, I still have plenty of faith in the general good nature of human beings.

Almost every time I leave a house, the person tells me to “be safe out there,” or “be careful,” or “don’t step on my tulips you idiot.” It’s as if they truly care about my well-being. That right there is the greatest lesson of all.

There’s nothing funny about Mace. I’m talking about pepper spray, of course, and not the rapper (there are plenty of funny things about him). Sure, no one talks about it anymore because Tasers are the popular thing now, but Mace can still mess you up pretty badly. There’s something to be said about the old fashioned ways of hurting people; they might be outdated, but I’ll be damned if they don’t work. Just because no one uses enormous wooden clubs anymore doesn’t mean I want to be on the receiving end of one.

I have heard so many horror stories about people screwing around with Mace and regretting it.

For example, I have one friend who actually wanted his friends to spray him in the face on the condition that they surprise him and get it on film.

Of course, afterwards he realized it was an awful price to pay for a funny video, but at least now he knows. On Friday night I had the pleasure of witnessing yet another friend learn the hard way that Mace is nothing to play around with.

My friend and I were walking around Federal Hill with his girlfriend when she dropped her keys on the pavement. She carries Mace on her key chain, and when the container hit the ground it popped out of its casing and rolled across the sidewalk.

My friend, being the gentleman that he is, picked it up for her and offered to try to fit it back into its shell. We watched nervously as he fiddled with the black plastic vile and finally pressed it back into place. It went in without incident, but we all felt the need to do a test spray to make sure it was working properly and also because we thought it would be cool. What harm could there be in spraying a little bit into the night air and then walking briskly in the opposite direction?

Probably not much, but when that went well, my friend’s girlfriend wanted a test spray of her own. That, too, went well and we were all on our way. We all stopped to urinate in someone’s backyard before the drive home.

Not five minutes into the ride, my friend turns down the radio and demands silence from everyone in the car.

“So… I don’t want to alarm anyone,” he began. “But my penis burns. A lot.”

We all laughed because there is nothing funnier than an awkward penis comment. As the laughter died down, though, his girlfriend spoke up.

“I was just getting ready to say, my nose kind of burns!”

We all laughed again. They looked at me, but I had nothing to add (thank God).

On the ride home, their respective burns kept getting worse and worse as we tried to figure out where we had gone wrong with the Mace.

Ten minutes in: “My dick is on fire. It feels like a dragon is eating my cock.”

That’s when it hit us. We realized that, obviously, our bathroom break before the ride home had probably been a bad idea. I guess playing with mace and then handling your junk can have consequences. Who knew?

Thirteen minutes in: “It’s so hot that I would fuck a polar bear. I’m not kidding.”

We made it home after a few more inappropriate animal references and everyone went to wash themselves clean of any Mace residue. No one suffered any lasting discomfort, but it really goes to show you how dangerous that stuff is. If a chance contact like that feels like being fellated by a dragon, imagine what a full blast to the eyes would feel like.

I was sitting on the couch the next morning when my friend and his girlfriend came downstairs.

“Not to be vulgar,” she said. “But we had sex last night. And it burned.”

Recently I’ve been trying to implement something that I should have started a long time ago: a budget. It wasn’t long ago that I didn’t particularly see the need for one. I had good money coming in and relatively little mandatory expenditures except for food and the cable bill. Now with car payments to make, automotive upkeep, rising gas prices, dating, and my frequent trips to South Africa to help the needy, money is starting to get tight.

It wasn’t difficult to figure out toward which unnecessary commodity most of my money was going. I have a feeling that many of you have the same vice as I do and are suckers for fast food. Let’s face it; I can’t cook. I don’t want to wash dishes, and there is a Subway 30 feet from my house. Alcohol costs chew up a significant portion of my money as well, but I consider that a mandatory monthly loss. Cutting back on eating out has helped relieve some of the strain on my bank account, and I’m staying in the green, thank God. Still, though, I miss having that financial cushion that I could fall back on or blow on lap dances. Furthermore, I can’t say that I haven’t grown accustomed to a certain type of lifestyle, one that doesn’t include Ramen Noodles and clearance aisle condoms.

I’m all about the phrase “work smarter, not harder.” In fact, the only thing better in my book than working smarter is not working at all. That’s why I’ve begun exploring options to supplement my income with minimal time and effort investment on my part. There are some great illegal options that, unfortunately, I had to scrap immediately. I’m glad I won’t have to resort to prostituting myself, but I have a feeling I would have been a great drug dealer.

My first (barely) legal idea was to start playing online poker. I figured I would log somewhere between six and 10 hours a week and pull in an extra 50 bucks (or more if I was lucky). I came up with this plan before I knew anything about poker. Once I started actually playing, I realized this probably wasn’t going to be the best way to get something for nothing. I enjoy playing, and I’m competent enough that I’m not going to lose a lot of money, but I doubt I can consistently pull in any sort of worthwhile profit at this point. At least, not enough to stop me from pursuing other ventures.

I considered playing the stock market, as well, and I hatched even more plans without knowing anything about what I was getting myself into. Once I started doing research on investing practices, I began to prefer when I had a lesser understanding of it. As I was reading the material, I felt out of place because I’m not 35, making a high five-figure income and saving for retirement. Apparently the New York Stock Exchange isn’t the type of thing where you just put in 50 bucks and pull out a hundred in a week or two. Go figure. I was hoping that I could eventually quit my job and have some sort of independent wealth. Since I’m still pretty young, I may have even gotten a Forbes cover story.

When that didn’t pan out, my options started getting less and less glorious, now bordering on the pathetic. I went from being a high-rolling gambler, to becoming an investment guru, to taking my change to Coinstar and turning in my aluminum cans for pocket change. I’m not throwing in the towel yet, though. Instead of looking for a second job or working more hours at my first one, I’m going to use that time productively and try to find another way to make money for free. There is so much money to be made on the Internet, so I’ll probably focus my efforts there. If that’s not successful, I’ll probably try to invent something or get in on a big class-action lawsuit.

My kids are going to have a terrible work ethic.

“Man, that’s backward’s walkin! Yesterday talkin”!”

I don’t know what that means, but that’s what the fat man was yelling as I sat down next to him, leaving a few buffer seats between us of course. He was angry because they were taking too long to change the tires on his Volkswagen. On top of that, he had just wrapped up a conversation with another customer about his diabetes and how the doctors had to remove his kidneys; another good reason to be angry. The manager was angry because he was getting yelled at and there was no reasoning with the man with no kidneys. The workers were angry because they were getting yelled at too, so they yelled at the manager and he yelled right back. I sat there reading “Cat Fancy,” and waiting for everyone to stop yelling and start working on my car.

On Saturday afternoon I had discovered my car had a flat tire. All I had wanted to do was go to IHOP and eat pancakes until my hangover subsided, but I had a flat tire. I still went to IHOP and ate pancakes until my hangover subsided, but I had to ride in a friend’s car and take care of mine later. On Monday, the spare tire blew out on my way to the tire shop. Naturally.

The tow truck took more than an hour to pick me up from the gas station that my car had barely made it to. The driver was nice enough to let me ride with him the rest of the way to the shop, and we made awkward conversation in the heavy traffic. It wasn’t too long until he turned down the Clay Aiken and started telling me about his business of bailing people out of situations like mine. I told him I should take his card because I don’t own any tools and I promised to enter him in a free-lunch raffle or two.

The tiny shop parking lot could barely accommodate the tow truck, but the driver got my car down safely anyway. I walked inside the office and listened to the diabetes conversation while waiting to talk to an employee. Right as I was learning about weight loss as a result of kidney failure, the manager showed up to help me. He said they had tires that would fit my car and that he would take care of it for me if I took care of him. Then he winked at me.

On the waiting room television, New York Governor Eliot Spitzer was on every channel. My regularly scheduled programming was being overwhelmed by the prostitution scandal. Some people were so shocked that they refused to comment. The fat man with no kidneys was also shocked, for a different reason, and he had no problem commenting on the workers’ incompetence. He started using crazy rhyming slang, that I didn’t understand, to communicate his frustration.

“That’s backwards walkin’! Yesterday talkin’! It don’t make no damn sense!” he yelled to no one in particular. I wasn’t sympathetic because my day had sucked equally, minus the diabetes. When they finally finished with his car, he paraded out the door with a loud, “never coming back to this ridiculous place.” He had been reading a better magazine than I was so I grabbed it from his chair. Better Homes and Gardens, if you were wondering.

His typhoon of rage had left the shop in shambles in its wake. The manager was arguing with the workers and the workers were threatening to quit. Meanwhile my car was up on a jack with the bad tire off, but no good tire in sight. This was a bad time for a mutiny.

Like any good captain, the wily manager calmed the uprising in the interest of customer satisfaction. He looked like he could have gone on yelling at people all day, but it was almost closing time and everyone wanted to go home. My car got the treatment it deserved and I was on my way, but not before a few more nuggets of bad news. “You need a new spare tire. Get it from a dealer for $120 or go to a junkyard.” “One of your lug nuts is stripped. Need to replace that.” “Sir, you can’t drink that in here.”

“This $35 refurbished tire had better be worth it,” I thought as I left the shop with their copy of Cat Fancy. I had already read that Better Homes and Gardens.

I just bought a new car because my old one broke down a few weeks ago. The make, model, year, color, and mileage are really inconsequential; the only thing that matters are the bench seats up front, and those are all I want to talk about. Most of you probably already know where I’m going with this.

Late last week I was sitting at my computer, writing an article about my car. I was debating what would be the best way to bang it out on the bench seats and give the car a proper christening, because my experience with hooking up in cars is, admittedly, limited. I should warn you, if you are offended by the concept of drunken pre-marital sexual activity, you should probably stop reading now. In fact, you should probably stop reading my column all together.

I’ve never had sex in a vehicle before, and frankly I haven’t felt like I was missing out on much. That’s probably because all the cars I’ve owned have been pieces of crap. No one wants to make love in a junky 1996 Ford Escort… Wagon. Be that as it may, the whole idea has always seemed a little forced to me. Why maneuver around the steering wheel and gearshift when I have my own obstacle free bed? My bedroom also has the added benefit of having a place to fall asleep immediately afterwards, and room to stash all of the whips, chains, blow up dolls, and other accessories.

Before I could finish writing what would have been today’s article, I decided to learn by doing. Trial by fire, if you will. Let me say this, there is a right way and a wrong way to hook up in your car. While I’m still trying to figure out what the right way is, I can now definitely say that I have discovered the wrong way.

My partner-in-crime and I snuck out of a party at my house on Saturday night. Instead of disappearing into my bedroom like normal people, we headed for the car (because I have been talking these bench seats up like a used car salesman). I was a little worried because there were people hanging out in the parking lot 15 feet away from where it was parked, but it’s amazing what a little alcohol and a persuasive female will make you do.

The car was cold and needed a minute to warm up. As the engine heated up, though, so did things in the front seat. A little light music set the mood along with the cackles and screams of drunken people in the distance.

Just as I started to really get into it and forget that there were people outside, probably watching us, that all-too-familiar white light shining in my eyes blinded me. Startled, I looked up to see a dark figure looming behind the glare outside my door. The police officer didn’t waste any time; he gave a few sharp knocks on the window and opened the driver’s side door so fast I almost fell out onto the pavement. If I hadn’t left the doors unlocked I may have been content to just let him enjoy the show and get arrested afterwards, but I wasn’t smart enough to think of that. As we both scrambled to collect ourselves, and our pants, the officer gave us his decree, “You know, she’s doing a hell of a job but you guys have to find another place to do it.” I swear he actually said that.

He walked away before we could even offer a reply. When I was finally able to sit up and look out the window, I saw THREE cop cars surrounding us. Each car had an officer hanging out the window and laughing. I’m glad the Baltimore County Police had a productive evening. We got out of the car and ran back to the house, laughing hysterically, eager to tell everyone what had happened.

I’m not ready to give up on the idea just yet. It’s just that next time I am going to have to pick a better place to park, if I park at all.

And now no one I know will ever want to ride shotgun in my car again.

My desirability peaked somewhere around 9th grade. I had a pretty good run in elementary school as the hot guy that all the girls wanted, tailed off a bit in middle school, and then blew up in ninth grade. I was going through my “punk” phase and had blue hair and spikes in my Chuck Taylor’s and tee shirts from Hot Topic. I’m sure I looked like an idiot but I guess I made an impression when I first walked through the door. Plenty of girls, and even a guy or two, took notice. At the end of 10th grade I settled down with one girl and basically ceased to exist to any others until I resurfaced at some point in college.

I think it’s pretty interesting, looking at who’s hot and who’s not at different stages of life. It’s easy to break it down for girls. If you were hot, guys wanted you, and if you weren’t, then they didn’t. Pretty simple. It hasn’t been so easy for guys.

In elementary school, I have very little knowledge on what made certain guys more attractive than others. I guess if you weren’t disfigured and you were fairly popular, then there would probably be a couple of girls that liked you.

Another thing I remember is that back then, tall was bad. If you look back at your old class photos and look at the kids in the back row, I guarantee those guys weren’t getting any love. Also, being in the “advanced” reading group was definitely a big help with the ladies.

Middle school was all about rebelling and basically being a huge pain in the ass. That’s when the distinction between nerd and cool became a little stronger, and being the teacher’s pet no longer got you popularity points. This was the beginning of the “liking older guys,” movement. I remember the kid that every girl at my middle school wanted to hook up with. He was like 16 when we were all in eighth grade; he had been held back for truancy or murder or something.

Here we all were, fresh faced 13 and 14 year olds, and this guy comes in smoking cigarettes, getting drunk in homeroom, and fighting anyone who looked at him the wrong way. One time he offered to take a bunch of girls on a joyride in his dad’s car, which he crashed into a telephone pole a few blocks from his house.

There was another guy who used to hang around and get a lot of attention from the girls. I say hang around because he didn’t actually go to our school. Every day he would ride over on his goofy little roller blades from whatever high school he went to so that he could hit on 14 year old girls and show off his beeper. Then he would blade off into the sunset before his shift at Giant started. The girls loved him at first, but eventually (with a lot of help from me and my friends) they realized he was a tool and he was shunned.

When we got to high school, it was like someone had hit the reset button. The girls we went to middle school with were all sick of us by this point and now there were eighteen year olds with cars and alcohol to hang out with. I mean, I had awesome blue hair and super cool Hot Topic tee shirts but even I couldn’t compete with that. I’m convinced that high school dating was pure chaos. There was no rhyme or reason to anything; all of the most random couples I’ve known hooked up in high school because they got detention together once or both listened to The Aquabats or something. No one ever knew how people got together, it just happened one day and became accepted as fact the next.

Good news is that everyone has a shot at love in college, depending on how high their standards are. Dating in college is, generally, even more chaotic than it was in high school, though. People still get together for really stupid reasons (alcohol), but instead of turning one commonality into a three year relationship, they just make out or have sex. It’s more efficient, but it also makes campus way more incestuous than your typical high school.

After a few years of playing Six Degrees of Evan’s Bacon, I’m curious to see what dating is like after college. I should probably get started on my eHarmony compatibility survey.

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone. I really mean that. I hope you all feel loved today. Tomorrow you can go back to being hated by everyone if you want, but today should be special. I’m talking to you, guy who proposed the new freedom of speech policy.

Personally, true love wasn’t in the cards for me this year, though, so I’m going to have to settle for a different kind of love: stripper love.

Any guy who has never been to a strip club will think this is stupid, and every girl will think it’s stupid regardless. All I have to say to those people is this: You don’t know what you’re talking about, but T-Pain does. Stripper love is very real.

I have fallen in love with a stripper on several occasions, and I’m not ashamed of it. You have to understand, the world doesn’t operate the same way inside a strip club as it does in the real world. You are talking to beautiful women who are paid (very, very well) to make you think they are interested in you. Imagine any girl who has ever buttered you up so you would buy her a drink, and then multiply that by a thousand. You can laugh about how ridiculous it is when you’re sitting around getting ready to go out, but once you get there and you’ve got a professional gaming you up, all bets are off.

It starts off innocently enough. You’re not naive enough to actually think you’re going to get some action at the strip club. You’re not looking to fall in love. You just want to go get drunk and see some skin. You watch the girls dance but one of them stands out for some reason. Maybe she’s not even the hottest one there, but she tickles your fancy. She can tell immediately, of course, because she is a pro. You’re a seal and she’s a shark that smells blood. That’s how it starts.

You fend off the other girls that want you to buy dances from them. Some of them are nasty, others are cute and fun to flirt with… but you’re distracted. You stall for time until your girl makes her rounds.

“What’s your name?” she asks when she finally approaches you. She totally wants you.

She thinks you have a sexy name and she also apparently thinks that she should sit on your lap. Okay, I know it sounds dumb, but seriously dude, this girl is into you. She doesn’t just say that to everybody.

Even so, you’ve got to play it cool because you know her game is tight. She’s not some drunken party girl.

You have already become naive enough to think you might actually get some action at a strip club and you’re not even finished your second beer.When she starts dancing again she’s only dancing for you. Also she’s dancing a little bit for that fat guy at the other end of the bar and kind of for your friend sitting next to you, but you know it’s mostly for you. She blushes when she catches eyes with you. After her dance she comes straight back to your lap; you’re so in. Next thing you know, you’ve bought her three drinks and you’re halfway through a $40 lapdance. You don’t get her number, but she tells you to come back and see her again. That’s basically the same thing. You’ll wonder for a good two days afterwards whether there was a real connection. After that, your dopamine levels return to normal and reality sets in: what the hell were you thinking?

It’s got all the elements of a real romance: nudity, regret, and a hefty price tag. See, who needs a girlfriend?

Everyone is doing it; there’s no use skirting around the issue. Of course, I’m talking about the only “it” worth talking about; sex. Although I think the media (especially in Hollywood) grossly overestimates how much sex is happening in college, there’s still a lot of it. And why not? We’re not in the 1940’s anymore; kids should be allowed to enjoy themselves.

The abstinence movement has failed miserably. Whenever I drive on 83 now, I see that sign that says “Sex can wait, your future can’t,” and I just laugh. Okay, Grandma, I think it’s past your bedtime.

I guess one thing about sex that sucks is buying condoms. I know in my head that it shouldn’t be embarrassing because it’s a common thing and no one really cares, but that doesn’t stop me from thinking all sorts of crazy thoughts every time I have to do it.

For instance, every single time I buy condoms, the checkout line is always 40 people long with some old woman holding things up by trying to use three year old coupons. Then I’m standing there for 20 minutes in the middle of a crowd just holding them; half trying to conceal them so that maybe people will just think its a disposable camera. I also have this ridiculous notion that I can’t buy JUST condoms. I always feel like I have to buy something else, as if the cashier will somehow get sidetracked and I can slip them through unnoticed. Usually the only other thing I can think of to buy is a Snickers or something. Condoms and a Snickers bar, because who doesn’t enjoy a post-coital snack?

Another absurd idea I have is that the cashier is going to judge me based on what type of condom I’m buying. I feel as though I’ll be pigeonholed as a freak if I buy anything other than your standard lubricated Trojan.

Sometimes the condoms are behind the counter, and when that’s the case I immediately throw in the towel. I’ll be damned if I’m going to ask a 63 year old woman to hand me “the big box of ultra-ribbed.” I’d rather just have a kid.

I like to be able to take my time and select the ones I want. Usually they are at the end of an aisle in the back of the store, which is pretty ideal. The only exception is when there is someone shopping for yeast infection cream two feet down from the condom section, and they are reeeeeeally taking their time. I can only do so many pointless laps around the store before I start getting impatient. Usually I just give up and go for it, realizing that the other person is probably just as embarrassed and uncomfortable as I am.

Despite all of the nonsense that runs through my head, I suck it up and buy them just like everyone else. The only other alternative is to use the old ones I have laying around. I still have condoms in my room that I bought in high school, but at this point using them would probably be a bad idea. The funny thing about that is that they have roughly the same shelf life as Twinkies, which is forever. From the day you buy them, you have about four or five years to use them. When you’re pushing the expiration date on condoms, that’s how you know you really need to get laid.

Recently I’ve been fascinated by how Facebook has been owning MySpace in every way. It used to be a pretty tight race, but now I’m pretty sure the people that run MySpace have given up on life. You can say what you want about Facebook, but at the end of the day they are making changes and improvements, and no matter what you say I know you are checking it constantly. MySpace is the same as it was five years ago. Facebook is green fields and fresh meadows. MySpace is a desolate wasteland covered in scum.

You might not agree with me, and that’s fine. But the one thing you can’t deny is that a large percentage of MySpace profiles don’t belong to real people. Like… a really large percentage. I’m not a huge user, and my profile is pretty bare-bones, but I still get about a friend request every two days or so. I can’t remember the last time one of them was legit.

At first they were all the same, back in the primitive early days of the webcam girl profile. Gorgeous girls in skimpy clothes with stripper names like “CrYStal<3″. A few pictures to get you enticed, and usually a flirty paragraph that helped you “get to know” the girl. Then once you were roped in, you stumbled onto the link to “see the webcam.” I would get these every once in a while.

Not anymore. That is the old way of doing things. The mom and pop way. We live in a Wal-Mart world. Quantity over quality, mass marketing. Now the webcam girls are all I ever see on MySpace… but these aren’t you grandpa’s webcam girls. The profiles have been stripped down to the essentials. They get right down to business. No pictures, no flirty paragraph, just a sentence and a link. “MySpace made me take my pictures down. See them HERE.” And the Crystal<3 we came to know and love doesn’t exist anymore. Her and her hot friends have been replaced by Average Jane’s. When you see these friend requests, you’re duped into thinking that it’s a real person because there’s no cleavage and no whale-tail.

Today I got such a friend request… and I was completely blown away. I was SURE it wasn’t going to be a webcam girl because the girl in the picture was, well, ugly. She was huge and pimply and greasy and her name was Hulda. I swear to God. Yet her profile looked just like so many I had seen before. Sorry, Hulda, but I don’t want to see any pictures of you here or anywhere. How is that good marketing?

This got me thinking, though, that they must be stealing profile pictures and screen names from unsuspecting MySpace users en mass and copying them over to a skeleton profile. Pretty clever. But then THAT got me thinking… what if, somewhere, somehow, I have my own webcam guy profile??? And THAT got me thinking, “On second thought, that is pretty good marketing.”