(First appeared in The Times on 26 July, 2007)
“THE foolish and the dead alone never change their opinions,” quoted the e-mail which suggested that I urgently needed to defrag my life.

I read the e-mail closely, but I still can’t really tell what defragging my life would entail. It had something to do with my computer and old versions of Windows and little lights. Something technical. Being a luddite of note, this sort of thing immediately makes me want to shut down all hard drive operations and take to the hills.

So you can imagine that I have yet to defrag. But I am in the process of changing. Don’t want to be accused of being any more foolish than I already am. I have decided to get a digital life. I was convinced that it had something to offer after watching one of my colleagues get some serious loving on Nude beach in Second Life.

Let’s just say that Ms Fufu Writer was scoring some big time, one-on-one action on a lilo, while I was pondering the embedded meanings of defragging. Some girls have all the fun.

So I took the plunge. I decided to befriend the very next person to ask me. On Facebook that is. It’s really rather sweet and all primary school like, this coming out and asking if you will besomebody’s Facebook friend. I got Ms Fufu Writer to upload a picture and set up a profile for me and now I’m friends with all sorts of people.

I’m particularly pleased with my burgeoning digital friendship with Ryk Neethling. We’re like this, Ryk and I. Me and 12000 blondes with serious cleavage which they flaunt with abandon on their profile pics. I told him I am the anomaly on his facebook, but he says it’s okay, he can cope.

On Friday I had a sudden spate of childhood friend requests and my Post-it Valentine from Grade 5. It’s really scary how they find you. Now I really felt like I was back on the playground playing kissing catches. But most shocking were the profile pics — change them boys — Hagar the Horrible will not win you any friends.

In my bid to get a fully formed digital life, I have even started a blog — The Frock Report — with my fellow Thursday columnist Jacquie Myburgh. I am the quintessential happy snapper, posting pictures of people who demonstrate a brilliant dress sense right, left and centre. My real life friends are starting to live in fear of my digital life. So am I — its starting to prevail. Perhaps I need to defrag…