To be honest, I am glad Facebook and Twitter are not available in China. I believe there are “vays und means” to get through via proxies but agh, it is just the waste of time that gets me. I would rather be working on my various book projects, studying Chinese or pouring myself a vodka and Coke light while I chat with the missus at the kitchen table in the evenings.

But some of the friend requests and “xxx is now following you on Twitter!” in the last few months made me put aside my vodka and Coke for a wee bit. You see, I have been getting friend requests and Twitter followers whose photos are most arresting. I am talking about skimpily clad angels with bodies to crawl through broken glass for. Of course I did not immediately click on the photo to see if I could enlarge and take a closer peek agh let’s be honest, but ja well no fine after thinking about it for a while I eventually decided to take a closer look in the interests of aesthetics and I decided not to … okay okay, I immediately tried to grant the friend request or tried to click the “follow follow follow!” button on their Twitter profiles and most certainly wanted to check them out and see why, in my naivety, all these truly hot babes were wanting to be my friend or have me as a zealous follower. I mean, like, I have, let’s see, mmm, babes lounging on their beds, the photo taking enticingly from above and girls with very wet bikinis splashing in water. One picture just showed a beautiful, languidly open feminine mouth with an erotic tongue curving upwards. Oh man oh man did I want to follow that particular chick, Sylvia Carver, but the Freudian “chop chop” nature of her surname got me thinking (with my big head, not the little one, at long last), what the hell is really going on here? I have decided to research the question a bit.

Of course, this research attempt was now almost with purely academic interests and I don’t have to chastise and expose myself with the strikethrough typing effect. At first I wished to think all these lovely ladies were following me because of my brilliant blogs and that they thought my mind and my use of the English language a real turn on. I mean, my blogs do get twittered and put on other blog or websites on a regular basis. But nah, I am sure my mugshot on my Thought Leader profile can’t be the reason why I am getting all these “hits”.

So I don’t know why I was getting all these requests from gorgeous women but have hypotheses. I no longer get them as from China I am unable to unless one uses a heavy-duty proxy server (an online tool that hides you and allows you to access blocked sites). I know this is doable because I also get friend requests from sexy Chinese sweethearts from within China. But the time it seems to take to, ahem, get in, is just not worth it, surprise surprise. But that is also because I realise all these attempts are either a hoax or an online research experiment. I must admit, when I was able to grant these friend requests to sexy women they started to flood in to my email account like skimpily clad models dashing up the fashion ramp to jump into yours truly’s arms. Then Facebook got the Chinese boot and the ramp curtains slowly closed. Hmmm.

Here are my hypotheses about this online virtual strip-tease phenomenon. Some university or marketing company wishes to see how many men immediately allow friend requests from hot chicks. I would have thought that one would be obvious and the percentage of hits those babes get would be extremely high. But the research may be more sophisticated. Perhaps a lot of men, desperate not to think with the big head, sigh and decide it is too good to be true and deny the friend or follower request. The research could be looking for an indication of suspicion or distrust.

I mean, when you make a friend on Facebook or Twitter, how do you know they are the gender they say they are? How many “friends” out there that you never meet are men in drag and getting a turn on or a laugh from all your attention and tongue-lolling, pawing requests to meet up in Hong Kong or Shaghai Shanghai sometime? The only time I tried a date through an online dating service about ten years ago (several years before I met my beloved rolling pin) was a complete disaster. At least she was the correct gender but that was nearly the only positive point about that evening.

So, to the fellow blokes out there, how many of you have had the online model ramp experience I have had? And the girls? You been getting “too good to be true hunk” friend request? Or are they good enough to be true?

• The silent generation
• Twitter gets me dinner with Ambassador Gips
• So...have you ever made a twitstop?
• How do they cope without 'takkies' and 'kak'?
• How Twitter broke the news about Manto

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 12:15 am and is filed under Perspective. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.