kayjer’s Neighborhood

How old do you think children should be before they join social networks like Facebook and MySpace?

It really depends on the maturity level of the child. I would say 12-14 years. That's a decent age range. MySpace seems to be flooded with kids, pre-teens and teens. (which made me feel less like the grown a$$ woman I've worked so hard to become...so I had to permanently sign off, lol). Anyway, for every child, there's a nasty little child-chaser waiting to see what he or she can get, unfortunately. That's why I say it depends on the maturity level of the child. How naive are they? How gullible are they? What type of decisions is the child known for making? Good decisions? Or decisions that constantly lead them into troublesome situations?

Facebook seems like it's more for the "sophisticate". But either way, kids have to be careful. They can't accept everyone's friend request on any of these sites - because people aren't always who they claim or seem to be online. That's the beauty of being online. People never have to see the "real you" unless you're honest enough to show them. Anyway, these social networking sites allow you to post your status at any given moment or location. Kids accept all these random friendship requests (i.e., "I only accepted him cuz he was ca-yute..."). If they're going to be doing that, are they going to keep these random strangers in mind when they update their statuses? They can tell the people they TRULY know just about anything, but they shouldn't be telling everyone they don't know that they're at dance class, or at the movies, or at the mall, or on vacation, etc. If they accept the wrong person as a friend...that person will know exactly where to look if they wanna find the kid! Parents should sit their children down and have the "internet safety" conversation. Parents, it's pretty much a fact that your kids are going to sign up for just about every social networking site available, whether they meet the age requirement or not. Give them some words of wisdom before they find themselves in a situation they'll regret forever...

Alright. I'll be the first to admit it: I watch entirely too many Lifetime movies. I read entirely too many fiction novels! I have a very dramatic imagination. What can I say? I'm a writer at heart. If I don't master the concept of melodrama, I'll never be the successful writer I hunger to be. So if I sound like a paranoid, overdramatic know-it-all, oh well...

The bottom line is this: All these sites have age limits (or do they? I dunno. I'm WELL over the age of acceptance if so, lol). Any way, back to the bottom line, lol: Kids LIE. That's what they do. They're LIARS. "Not my baby," you say. Well, either you're a liar too, or you've been deceived. Your "baby" is a liar, lol. Kids constantly alter themselves in order to be accepted - by their friends, by their family, by strangers, and yes, even by social networking sites that set age limits. Ten year olds pose as 14 year olds all day long. 35 year olds pose as 14 year olds. You can't really stop your kid from joining these sites, especially when they reach the age limit that's been set (or maybe you can stop them. I don't know anything about you! But you never know. Perhaps your "baby" is finding a way to make it happen regardless).

The least a parent can do is set some guidelines. Tell your kids not to accept random friend requests..."I don't care how sexy "Bobby" looks in that picture! DENY HIM!" If they insist on accepting these friendships, tell them to be VERY vague about the statuses they put up, and even the profile information they put up. Strangers don't need to know where your kids live, what school they go to, or where they get their hair done...lol. Even pictures need discretion. If your kid has on a cheerleading outfit, that's pretty much telling a pedafile where they can go to abduct your kid. Your kids also need to make their pages PRIVATE. Otherwise, random people will be able to see everything posted on your kids' pages without having to be their friend at all. Ask you kid, "Baby, is your page private?" lol...

The good thing about all these safety precautions is, your kids will be so stressed out from hearing about how careful they have to be that they won't even bother to accept random friend requests! YAY!

Well, anyway, I'm done. For now...lol.

I don't know if you've noticed, but you've caught my eye from day one. Yes, that sounds hella cheesy, but I was strangely attracted to you the first time I laid eyes on you - perhaps even magnetically. We were sitting in a big group while Sunny gave us the lowdown on house rules, and my eyes kept flitting to you, while I hoped you didn't notice. Or at least you noticed that I was looking at you, but just enough to know that you've caught my attention and not so much that you think I'm a creep. I still don't know what it was. I mean, you had pretty interesting glasses, granted, but that's about it. I don't even remember what you were wearing. (Or was I looking at you because I felt you looking at me?)

Subsequently, my hunches were proved right. You're into photography! You're artsy! You're sensitive, observant, self-reflexive, contemplative and intuitive! One by one these traits started proving themselves. You told me that the Opera chick was weird because you couldn't tell what kind of personality she was despite conversing with her for an extended period of time, when you can normally tell how to talk to a person after 5 minutes. You think people don't make enough self-aware comments. You wish your superpower was mind-reading. And I wholeheartedly agree with you. I know this sounds like bull, but I feel like on a fundamental level we are very similar. The way we assess people and the world are very close.

It is too bad that we don't have too many common interests. Of course, if you were attracted to me and too felt compelled to take it up to the next level, I'd be more than glad to learn to like your likes. I guess in one sense of the word, I don't have any real basis to LIKE you. (Because I think real liking is mutual.) You were pretty nice about me being ill, but then that might just be guilt. You haven't seemed to exhibit the same degree of concern to Sass, but that might be because I just wasn't around to witness you doing so. You seem to be touching me a whole lot more: brushing my fingers while I hand you something, digressing from the group conversation to talk to me personally (but maybe that's only because I seat myself close to you), playfully kicking me (gosh that sounds so wrong) or brushing your wet arm on my sleeve. But you might just be being playful and friendly, who's to know?

The only thing I can be sure is that you trust that I am sympathetic enough to tell me about your sad, heartbreaking love story, and even then who's to know if you merely needed some release?

From what you've told me, the way you like her is pretty different from the way I like you. I don't like you only because I find your artsiness and contemplativeness deadly sexy, but because I know, I simply know that on some fundamental but deeply-rooted level, we are alike.

I don't know. I wish I had the chance to prove my attraction to you wrong/right. If it's wrong, I'm gonna back off. Take Khairi. I was only attracted to him when I saw him doodling. That, is superficial. I was attracted to you by NOTHING. So don't take it the wrong way. Don't take me to be a superficial, besotted chick like whatshername who fawns all over you speaking French. I think it's cool that you're into photography, but if you weren't I would've still been attracted to you, because I was already.

dearbarbz.com

Soo... the time has come, my friends, for my domain. I am super excited to give you a link to my first domain ever and I moved to wordpress.... don't worry, I'm not deleting Vox or anything. I love the community here and I will check up on your posts, but I will blog at my new wordpress. Except for when I want to make private posts, I will do so here.

Please take a look and let me know you visited! Thanks <3333

http://dearbarbz.com