You know what, this Friendster thingy is starting to get me worried. What's up with everyone leaving out-of-this-world comments on everyone? Browsing through those profiles in my private network -- or whatever it is they call it, I only see good things written. Now, my own testimonials are not too far off, either. Man, some of those are quite, how should I put it, disturbing. Somehow.

And how, pray tell, could good testimonials be disturbing? Hmm, dunno, they can mislead people, perhaps? Into believing that someone is better than he or she actually is? Because, like it or not, when writing testimonials, most people tend to -- well, maybe not exaggerate, that would be exaggerating -- be over-generous, if there's such word. Example. On someone who knows a bit of Photoshop we would write, "This guy is a Photoshop guru!" On someone whose average bowling score is 120 we would write, "This dude is a monster when it comes to bowling!" Well, not always with exclamation marks, but something to that effect. Kinda reminds me of Paula's comments on AI contestants, week in week out.

Truth is, knowing how to do a "waving flag" trick on Photoshop doesn't make someone a member of Photoshop Guru Association and average score of 120 hardly qualifies someone for Mighty Bowling Creature Society.

Then there's this popularity-contest side of it. The more "friends" you have, the more Mr. or Ms. Popular you are. And when a Mr. or Ms. Popular adds you as a friend, it's a highlight of your life. It's like back in high-school or uni days, where everyone dreams of being invited to Mr. Basketball Star's or Ms. Student-Council-President-Cum-Movie-Star's parties.

All right, I'm being bitter, I know. So let's play along this popularity line. Suppose it is indeed a popularity contest. Suppose at the end of the year we will have a big Friendster Awards Night -- hey, this is not to give anyone any idea, K. What indicators can we use to pick the winner of Friendster's Most Popular Member? We have to make sure it's an even playing field for everyone, don't we?

The easiest would be to look at how many friends someone has. See, already everyone starts protesting. Because it won't be fair to those who joined Friendster only recently. And because some people just add everyone they even remotely know -- and this everyone in turn is too polite to reject. What about the ratio of friends and months being a member? Meaning that if you've been a member for 6 months and have 150 friends, you're less popular than someone who's been a member for 3 months only but already has 80 friends. And again everyone starts protesting. Because it's only natural that the friend count rate slows down after the first few weeks when we want to right away add all the people we can think of. All right, all right, let's see...

What about the number of testimonials? Yeah, that might work. Right? I mean, surely those who bother to write you testimonials are your true friends. After all they spend precious minutes -- some even sleep on it to come up with their best -- to think of good things about you. But some are still protesting. Because some consider testimonials as favors to be returned. I mean, I wrote you a testimonial, it's only fair for you to write me one in return, right? That's why we see "Uh, I have only met this person once, can't recall where, but he left a good impression on me" and "We had a chat a few times on Yahoo and never actually met, but from the amount of smileys she used I'm sure she's a good person and smiles a lot in person." Hmm, wow-kayyy.

I guess the arguments above also rule out having the ratio of friends and testimonials as an indicator, then. So now what? What's left? Oh well, apparently Friendster is not a good way to measure someone's popularity after all. As if anyone ever said it was.

Now back to my original blabbing on top. I mean, c'mon now, won't it be good if people also include bad things in their testimonials, on top of the usual good stuff? Great, I just wrote an oxymoron there. Since when is bad == good? My Religion teacher back in high school will frown his forehead to the roof. And how someone can teach religion to anyone is still beyond me -- but let's save that for another time.

Then again, how can you say bad things about your friends? Imagine if I write, "this guy here likes to watch adult videos on BDSM. Oh, and he occasionally steals. But he's a great friend to have always." What? You don't know what BDSM is? Lucky you. I mean, dunno about gals, but we guys have a rule that says: never tell your friend's GF that he's cheating on her -- later you can beat him up for that, but not a word to her. If you know good things about a friend, tell the world. If you know bad things about a friend, keep 'em between you and that friend.

And that is why, my friends, we need *drum roll here* Enemiester! *echo here* It is the anti-Friendster. It is the place where you can add people as your enemies and write bad things on their testimonials -- of course, they won't be called testimonials, maybe something like, I dunno, denouncements? It is where friendship won't stand in your way of judging others. And what's the point of keeping enemies, one might ask. Ever heard of the expression keeping your friends close but your enemies closer? Well, there you go.

On Enemiester you can Suggest An Enemy. And instead of promoting a friend to other friends, you can denounce an enemy to other enemies. Wait. Enemy to enemies? That would be double negation. Something's not right. Too bad I have cleared my brain of all those Discrete Maths things, so I can't explain. And, of course, Enemiester would maintain the familiar Friendster items, such as companies, schools, and interests. That way you could search for people who work for Micro$oft or like Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On and add them as enemies.

Interesting, isn't it? Can't wait to get your hands on Enemiester, can you? It would be more interesting, though, to create accounts on both Friendster and Enemiester and see which you have more, friends or enemies, testimonials or denouncements. There might even be a good chance that some friends of yours are also your enemies. But somehow I don't think too many people would be so surprised at that.