You know that poster series you typically come across when shifting aimlessly through the poster rack at some store like Hastings, Sam Goody or (shudder) Spencer’s Gifts with the illustration of an old man giving the thumbs up to some childish slogan that only an acne-infested, 13-year-old suburban tween would find funny?

You know, the ones with the slogans like “Breasts: Helping men avoid eye contact since 1865” and “Vodka: Because you’re ugly and I’m horny.” Catch my drift?

Well, the reason I bring these ridiculous things up is because I was recently at an old friend’s house, and, in his living room on proud display sits one of these posters, his, summing up the stereotype of male stupidity in just one sentence: “Beer: Helping ugly people have sex since 1862.” Brilliant, right?

Anyway, while I was waiting for him to shower and get ready, I sat there eye to eye with this thing thinking, even beer can’t make some people look good. What do they do? Suddenly, I was going a step further thinking, what is a surefire tool to get some physical attention from the opposite sex? Then it hit me — my best friend and worst enemy — MySpace.com.

Sleazier and more accessible than Facebook, less desperate than Hotornot and just a step above an online singles page — MySpace, I reckoned, not beer, is helping all people, not just the ugly ones, to score and it’s truly out of control.

Think through your group of friends and I’m guessing one of them has met if not dated someone they met on MySpace, right? What’s the deal? I mean, OK, so I joined MySpace roughly four months ago and I figure this digital dating endemic was spreading long before my snooping eyes were devouring profile after profile of California-dwelling “underwear models,” but now that I’m on to it, I feel like I have to say something.

I’ll come clean — I’ve become a typical MySpace junkie like everyone else. I’m friends with the girl who lives in Florida I’ll never meet, the band that added me that I’ll never listen to and the blonde bombshell, blue-eyed beauty who has 67 thousand friends and forgot about me two seconds after adding me. I love new picture comments and new messages (they’re a little spice to an average day), but that’s where I end my obsession. There is too much about meeting girls on a Web site that seems unnatural.

First and foremost, is it even possible to really determine that you like someone based on a one-page profile alone? Since when did an online Web page become such an extension of who we are? Are the new standards for what’s hot now how customized our profiles are, how many obscure bands we can list or how clever our blogs are? When you start talking with someone online without ever having met them first, can you even say you know them, are you really friends? No, because your MySpace self and real life self aren’t the same person — depending on when you catch me, I might be writing songs for my upcoming record, spray painting my room or lifting weights. Why? Because MySpace lets me be who and what I want to be when I want to be it — and it’s not just me, it’s everyone.

Furthermore, maybe it’s just me, but I’m fine waiting for that moment to come when I meet the girl of my dreams — I’m not going to actually spend time looking for people in my area code who I think are cute and have matching interests. So what if we both like green tea and think Henry Rollins is awesome — I know a lot of jerks who are into both.

So what can we do as more and more of us find ourselves swept up in this nearly anonymous cyber courtship? My suggestion is turn off the computer, get out there and actually meet someone. Sure, it’s a hell of a lot harder, especially if you’re shy, but that’s simply part of life; those experiences make us who we are. So get out there, find a cutie and flirt with them — believe me, it’s a lot sweeter than an all-too-flattering poke.

— Dante Sacomani is a junior in journalism and mass communication from St. Charles, Ill. He is the Pulse desk editor and a proud MySpace junkie.