Friendster dot com seems to be the technological proof that one REALLY exists. Sounds weird, but everyone I know here seems to have a friendster. The warped cyber philosophy goes something like this —
“I have a friendster, therefore i exist!”
Nevermind those who have no web access, like the dying kids at Sudan. Maybe they do not exist because they have no friendster?
Anyway my favorite kid Niccolo happens to have a friendster. He exists.
The problem started when he started playing cyber-detective and found that he had a generally nice sister and brother. He also found out that I wasn’t their mother.Yah get the idea?
Of course, he found was terribly ‘enlightened’ and thought that he was now qualified to write something as monumental as “ROOTS“. Poor kid.. really.Now he is bent on coming up with some geneological dissertation on the value of family trees.
This upsets me. Why? It is not because his father wasn’t Abe Lincoln or Donald Trump, but because he may be having too high of an expectation of acceptance and mushy loving. It also boggles me because it would indeed be comical if his suspected half-sister is trying to be merely civil and that they aren’t related at all! It would be pathetically hilarious and I can’t stop him because I am a middle-of-the-road liberal (LOL!)
Thus, I have to allow him space to make an absolute fool of himself.
So, he asked his “suspected sister” something like : ” Is blah-blah your father. I think you’re my sister!”. Of course that was idiotic, but part of my being a good parent is to allow the kid some moronic experience. He went furthur : ” You look like me!” . Talk about kids and their stupid utterances! The suspected sister went : “ Really, I like see you!”. Thus I told him something to the effect that cyberfiriends are great, but it isn’t the place to go and find.. roots! Like, anyone can find someone with the name Napoleon Bonaparte in some community like friendster, but he couldn’t be the REAL thing.
What I am not telling him however is that this suspected-sister looks exactly like him. And yes, they could have had the same father because I wasn’t into the Albert Einstein types when I picked him up some long years ago. Aside from that, his older brother THINKS SO, but his older brother had no horse nor common sense enough to send “feelers” first.
He thinks that cyber bullying his brother’s “suspected half sister” to “telling the truth” is the most honest thing one is supposed to do. Of course, his brother is the ultra-rightist Republican type. Now can you imagine how politically incorrect and chaotic my home is.
Heck, so what if the poor ‘suspected sister’ is REALLY his sister? She is only the “suspected” sister, and she has the individual right to say or not say what the name of father is/was/will be/whatever. Same as my fave kid – he had the individual right to ask. After all, who wouldn’t be interested in knowing one’s imaginary or real father?
The cyber bully is my fave kid’s older brother who thinks that terror tactics are completely acceptable to make the poor “suspected sister” admit who her father is. It is also warped and rather annoyingly hilarious because it is none of his business. He has his own father. He knows his own father. He sometimes acts like his own father which makes me want to reconsider my pro-life political stand.
Heck, I want to sue Friendster!
I feel that it somehow “pressures” utterly sane people to do the most ridiculous things. Like, looking for a “sister”. Now, I have this outrageous idea of actually placing an internet ad like : ” Wanted : Sister for my Kid! Must be mushy, nice and INTELLIGENT enough NOT to have a friendster account”.
Or maybe they’ll both get invited to “OPRAH”! Dang!
Bugsey's Bugsurdities...UNFAIR,UNBALANCED BUT TRUE! (so get used to it!) 