When I got a MySpace account, about a year ago...

Post Reply New Topic

...shortly after I'd moved here to Las Vegas, Nevada...

...I thought it would be an excellent way to meet new friends.

My impression was, "how you doing, I'm WildMan! I just moved to Vegas last month. These are my interests... yadda yadda yadda..."

The person: "Hey, you're pretty cool! Here's what I like. Yadda yadda yadda... we should meet up somewhere.

WildMan: "COol!! !

Turns out I was dead wrong.

It's like an omnipresent high school. Nothing but cliques.

I guess people just use it to communicate with people they already know?

Because I sure got a lot of nasty "who the [bleep] are you, don't ever message me again [bleeeep]! !! !" responses.

To hell with MySpace.

Also, I notice when I meet new people at bars and stuff, or if I hit it off with a group of tourists (remember, I live in Vegas), they always want to exchange MySpaces.

I have a MySpace (not the same one I started with) but I never, ever check it.

But it's always MySpace. "Hey, we gotta go, do you have MySpace?"



So maybe it's good for that? For communicating with people you hit it off with in real life?

Oh man, do I hear you. It took me forever to figure out that people weren't interested in talking to "internet weirdos" (Um, don't they have an account too?) except for the brief exchange that enables them to add each other in the "friends list" ego-stroking-device section. But actually trying to have a real conversation? And maybe even hanging out? Well, that's for crazy people.

I'm on myspace all the time. The 3 websites that i spend the most time on are this one, myspace and ebay. I'm always checking my myspace to see if anyone had deleted me from their friends. most of my myspace friends ive never met in person.

I go there, but try not to take it seriously. The people on it are as shallow as hell, and are just sad.

I fell for one guy on there that proceeded to treat me like sh*t, so i've really lost my liking for it.

I have a myspace. I usually log in to check it about once a month. I have a friend there from school who says he lives in Tulsa, Alabama. Tulsa's not in Alabama. This is a list of my myspace friends:

Ariele and Emelia
Alex
Dave_19_Essex
Numb Body
Preston

I got reunited with most of my graduating high school class on MySpace.

Tim

MySpace seems awfully stupid.

But then again, Livejournal probably does too, and there's some great people I talk to I've "met" through there.

Most of my friends are either musicians (some are from my town so I support them), old classmates from high school and spammers.
This one girl posts about 20 bulletins a day

I like this description...

I used to really despise myspace for a lot of the reasons people have mentioned here, but lately I've been really enjoying it. Alot of the people I know in real lifehave gotten on and most real (not so shallow) people do tend use it as a way to keep in touch with people they know. You really have to catch the right group...

Which as most of you know, for us it's kinda like trying to get on a train that pulls up to the platform but never quite comes to a stop, so you have to run and jump to get on. We also don't strain out the bad people too well.

Myspace is not a good place just to meet people. Like you said, people tend to have an aversion to some random internet person approaching them. However, you can use it for what it is--

Remeber that social dynamics have a sort of flow -- things have to happen a certain way for a friendship to form. You said that you've noticed where most people meet briefly and they exchange myspaces if they kinda have a good first impression. This is exactly right and it's the most beautiful part. "The way in" if you will. You might be surprised if I tell you that most aspies really don't have great problems with the first impressions -- Why? Because a lot of NT's are just as nervous and a prone to mistakes. People say first impressions are the most important, but I can't completely agree. Yeah, a lot hinges on that first impression, but it doesn't mean crap if you can't maintain the friendship. It's easy to tell a quick joke or use some charming self-depricating humor to get a cheap laugh, it's another thing entirely to keep it going.

You see, most aspies actually have a lot of problems in the post introduction stages of a friendship ("Uh what do I do now?!?!?"), but do marginally better in those stages with the internet as a screen. The reason is that this is the stage where NT's really start paying attention to body language and other expressions, forming greater opinions about whether or not they want to form a bond with you. The lack of expression or odd expressions from many aspies is what screws the pooch right here. Once the bond of friendship is better formed however, they are more willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. So in person, a lot of aspies can at least give a nice first impression but can't maintain it, blowing it in the sensitive "getting to know each other phase" that follows soon after. This is why the internet is good at early part of this stage, because you can build a solid base on who you are on the inside before moving forward.

It's also great in those instances where you meet someone new but you would otherwise have no chance to talk to them again (not just a problem for aspies, but also NTs).

Bottom line, if you use myspace a certain way it can be pretty useful tool in building friendships. It can't be the basis for every part of the friendship. It's just a single tool.

For me, I generally don't like internet people approaching me. I did this once on livejournal and I had a horrible experience of it. The sole exception to that rule is other people with AS. I'm always open to give anyone that sees me here a shot. I've gotten some nice friendships out of it.

I just deactivated my Facebook account. I maintain an account on MySpace that I only use for looking at other people profiles. If someone asks in real life if I have a MySpace, I will simply tell them no, I don't want to use MySpace because it crashes my computer, which in many cases describes the truth. There was and still is a 50% probability, it seems, that my computer will crash after accessing a poorly designed profile.

Before, I did have a MySpace account that I tried to use in earnest, allowing my profile to be seen and commented on, and I would comment on other people's profile but some of the people from high school who were friendly acquaintances that I tried to add as a friend rejected me. From looking at their profiles, I should I have known that most of them were quite shallow.

You may be right, however, and not so much at all on these forums, it does seem that the inhibitions NTs have are actually lessened once they log-on to the Internet. They feel that they don't have to be so nice and that they can say whatever they want on the Internet. IMO, that does not make the playing field even for Aspies, in social interaction over the Internet.Usually it just means that any safety mechanisms, such as politeness, no longer apply, and Aspies will become vulnerable. I have been a target of cyber-bullying on some forums and was left seriously disillusioned with trying to build any kind of friendship with NTs on the Internet.

I tried to add a girl who used to always hang out at my apartment my first year of college (she was friends with my roommates). She seemed nice to me then....but she messaged me and I told her who I was. She was just like "oh, yea I remember you." Then she wouldn't message me back and just took me off her friends list. It really hurt me. I don't understand why she couldn't have said something to me, like she only uses her myspace for close friends, or why she ever pretended to be nice to me when I knew her in real life. I suppose she's just a shallow, pretentious b***h but I can't help but feel hurt.

I hate myspace. My cousins won't even add me as friends or wish me a happy birthday. I feel like deleting my account but there are a few people I wouldn't have contact with otherwise. So I keep it even though it just embarasses me and reminds me of how socially inept I am.

I had to delete mine a couple of weeks ago, because I couldn't live up to people's expectations of being cool and likeable. I felt like I shouldn't describe my aspie self and had to pretend to be normal, so it became another place where I also had to pretend and I don't need that, so I deleted my account.