Since it's time for Halloween and things that are evil, I need to get this off of my chest. It's probably going to earn me some hard feelings and hate mail from addicts (in denial), but here goes: MySpace is the devil.

There I said it. Somebody needed to.

Sure, it's a great way to reconnect with old friends, meet new ones and network with people who share the same interests. You can spend hours on there. And for those trolling the site for a potential mate, there are plenty of (allegedly) single folks to be had. Or so I've heard.

For all intents and purposes, this site boasts nothing but true blue-and-white good intentions. But didn't someone say the road to hell is paved with good intentions?

I can't count how many times I've had friends tell me how arguments brewed over added contacts, cryptic messages and comments and cyber-sleuthing. Who is she? Why are you looking for your old high school/college crush? What exactly did he mean by that? In extreme cases, suspicions and feuds result in deletion from another's Friend Space.

Ouch.

Loyalties — for the married and unmarried alike — are constantly tested in the fire of digital mingling.

And then there's the mild torment of stumbling upon that someone who is supposed to have been thoroughly inconsolable after the breakup, but who seems to have managed to survive and is doing perfectly fine. Like “look at my beautiful wife and two kids, and we just moved into our dream house” fine. Or the ex who sends you a friend request because that's exactly what you want to be now — friends. Because it's so much easier to send messages since you two still aren't speaking.

And what about the excruciating temptation of running across a crush and wondering if it's even worth mentioning that, maybe it's just you, but didn't he or she always feel like there was something there? Maybe, or else this is really, really embarrassing. For my sake, I might have to delete you from my friends list so I won't know when you're online.

It's enough to make you crazy. Or at least mildly bitter.

I've sent more than a few saccharine wishes for long-lasting happiness combined with extravagant compliments on another's life, love and future.

I've yelled a few “WTFs?” at an ex's attempt to either reconnect or his bored pursuit to boost his MySpace popularity, which is determined by the sum of friends multiplied by the square root of profile hits.

On the other hand, I did meet a really cute guy who shares my sarcastic humor and is psyched about accompanying me to jazz lounges, salsa dancing and on long hikes. If I agree to go to a few country gigs.
 
Still, MySpace is the devil.