I read an article about Friendster in ST this morning at school, and continued to ponder over a few things that I never had a chance to really think about. It was rather weird to have such thoughts make their way into my head at such a time, but nevertheless productive in discovering the world and myself.

As you probably already know, I am a loyal fan of online games. Not all, of course, but decent ones that people of my age usually fancy. For instance, Maple Story.

I beseech you to not string me together with people who are playing this game now. Back when I was playing this game, it was in its very early beta-testing stages and it was still called Maple Story GLOBAL where people from all over the world play in a single server. There were only two channels back then with less than a thousand people playing. Everyone knew one another. It was sweet.

It was then they decided to split Maple Story GLOBAL up to Maple SEA and Maple International (or whatever) and wiped the server which marked the end of these old players' quest to virtual power. Now, there are - insert a number - servers with channels that only God knows how many there are.

Maple Story is now infested with more imbeciles I have ever seen in an online game, and the game certainly degraded from a very fine online MMORPG to one that only hackers and trouble makers frequent (of course, I cannot deny that there are still cultured and refined players in the game).

Ahem.

Back to what I was saying, yes?

Instead of truly making friends, Friendster became a common place to compete for the throne of the popularity queen or/and king for certain groups of people. The more testimonials you have, the more popular you seem. You can even choose to approve or reject testimonials, hence resulting in people seem oh, so perfect.

Let's not allow me to side track into this particular problem. My focus is this - the photos uploading system.

Some of the Friendster users are unable to upload photos of themselves because they do not own a scanner or a digital camera (you know, like yours truly). I am in quite a tricky situation, for even my MMS mobile phone has no MMS service. I am not very keen about putting myself on a padestal to allow people to scrutinize me, but again, this is not the focus of my entry.

Well, you see - when you do not have pictures of yourself to show, people ask you questions like "Are you chio?" or "Are you a cute girl?". Often, they do not realise how stupid these questions are. Back in the past, I usually respond to these questions despite its stupidity out of pure courtesy.

I stop to think. What should I say? It is hard to find a perfect answer. I am not, er, "chio" (what a barbaric word - is it that hard to say even beautiful or pretty?). I am okay with people who say that they are gorgeous, for I like people who acknowledges their assets. Not okay if they overdo it, though.

When I think of using negative adjectives to describe myself, I find it unsuitable too. I am definitely not "ugly" or "nerdy". Hell, I am too long a way off from "auntie" even though I am in fact an aunt in real life (my elder sister has a daughter).

After what seemed like eternity, I find myself very happy with the adjective "presentable". And now the other party has a problem with my adjective. I wonder why I even bother talking to them.

One thing they do not realise is that most of the people who asked and are asked this question are often trapped in a vicious cycle of lies and insincere compliments. Here, allow me to do a demostration of a plausible conversation between two online friends (complete in Singlish with language mistakes).

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A : you no photos?
B : nope, no scanner
A : can upload with digital camera what
B : haha, no digi cam oso
A : wah lao
B : no money ma. I oso don't like to take photos aniwae
A : really ar
B : yeah
A : then are you chio? :P (or "shuai" depending on the gender of the other party)
B : no la. wah lao. who will say themselves chio one. please lei.
1. A : no lei, one must be confident of themselves. lol
OR
2. A : no la. you must be lieing. people who say they are not chio are usually damn chio.
B : well, my friends say I am quite chio la. but I don't think so. they anihow say one.

... and it goes on and on.
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I think you get what I mean.