Think of it as diet-friendship. All the taste of human interaction, but with none of the hassle of actually travelling out of your flat. If you want, you don’t even have to bother dressing for social gatherings any more. For all you know, I could be sat here wearing nothing but a pair of flip-flops and a wry smile.

Calm down readers, that was just a shocking example of the extreme dangers of internet friendships. I am actually wearing a smoking jacket, silk cravat, and look like Noel Coward’s smarter (straighter) brother. The point I was making is that no matter what, you can never be sure that people are quite who they say they are, or whether you’re getting the complete picture.

Now, sites like Myspace, Bebo, and Facebook allow us all to stay in touch with friends and family, as well as those people we really hated at school and we want to feel superior to.

For those who are lucky enough not to have been ensnared in the Facebook, I’ll explain. Basically, it’s a bit like a highly contagious disease. Someone who has the Facebook bug will invite you (and every other sod in their email contacts list), and you’re then emotionally obliged to accept and join fray! In a way, the disease analogy can be extended to some sexually transmitted disease, as the more “contacts” you have, the more you infect with the joys of facebook!

So, you didn’t use the protection of a spam filter, and you wake up with the rash of a facebook invitation. What next? Well, my first suggestion is to add everyone in your contact list. That way, you and other novices can bluff your way along at the same speed.

Once you’ve got all your friends on board, the obvious progression is to search out your enemies. That’s right, remember those days back at school when you knew that you were destined for relative greatness, while that gormless (possibly inbred) kid who smelled like a horse’s arse would almost definitely be trapped in the same small town for the rest of his life? Well it’s time to prove yourself right. Simply put their name into the search function, and plough through the resulting list in the hope that they have managed to have some technological contact with the outside world. Of course, there’s always that risk that somehow they have evolved into a human, won the lottery, and is married to a supermodel. If this is the case, you have 2 options: delete them as a contact… or lie.

I’d like to take this opportunity to share some of the personal anxiety that Facebook has caused me. I like to think that I’m a fairly sociable chap, and I have made a lot of contacts throughout my nomadic professional life. However, I have less than a dozen contacts. Can 27 years of life really boil down to your mates being outnumbered by a jury? By way of contrast, Techno Scouse has approximately 3 million contacts. In 3 years, we’ll all be struggling with anxiety caused by contact-list envy. People will be terrified of logging onto the internet because they are self-conscious about the shortness of their friends list. Or maybe that’s just me.

Friends added? Check. Enemies stalked and vetted so that those inferior to you are forced to bask in your glory? Check. What now? Well, I’m not really sure. Speaking for myself, you just sort of go on there every day and update your status to reflect your mood or make a witty comment about things you’ve been up to. Then there are little applications to add, along the lines of “which Star Wars character are you?” etc. (I was Darth Sidious, just so you know).

And that’s kind of it. Send a few emails, and spy on people you know. All in the name of being technologically sociable. It doesn’t actually make you a better person, and you still aren’t really interacting with people. But who cares, it fills time and let’s you spy on who your mates are sending virtual hugs to.

Knowledge is Power!