Notch

Not too long ago an idea popped in my head for a social-network competitor to Facebook.  Course, I don’t have the time to build the world’s next Web2.0 “killer app”, nor would I even have the gall or the balls to use this application if it existed.  But, since it came to mind, I might as well write it down and present this idea to the internet, to do with it what it will.

Have you ever received a Facebook Friend Request from a past flame or maybe a random hook-up from the younger days? You think back to that brief moment in time with a touch of nostalgia, remembering how one simple college basement keg-bash ended up as a night of backyard romance.  Or maybe you shudder with regret at a fateful night many years ago that started with a group of friends and co-eds  playing Century Club, then Asshole, then “I Never” and led to drunken confessions with a stranger in the corner of a party, and ended up a morning of awkward side glances and a meek, “I’ll call you.”   You ever get one of these Friend Requests? I haven’t, because I’m pure as the desert sands.  But this game is not for sweet and precious virgins like myself, it’s for all you nasty sinners.

The game is called Notch, the logo is a brown leather belt in the shape of a heart,  and it’s way of reconnecting with hookups from years past.  Why?  Well, perhaps you’re the type who appreciates a touch of nostalgia, a memory of times before marriage, kids, 401k.  Simpler times.  Perhaps you’re just a douchebag.

Notch is a Social Networking site like all the others.  You sign up, creep around for a while, look at bios and pictures of people you used to know back in the day, and shallowly compare their current appearance and career levels with your own.  But in Notch, you don’t send a friend request to someone who sat next to you in homeroom.  No, in Notch, you stumble across the profile of someone with whom you shared a..  ahem… special moment, and you “notch” this person.

Upon “notching” that special gal or guy from the good ole days, you are presented with a scale to rate your memory of this past experience – “Stoked” or “Bummed.”

The “Notch-ee” is then alerted to your “Notch.”  He or she can “Accept it”, admitting that the act (or acts) did occur,  and can then rate his or her own memory of the situation – “Stoked” or “Bummed.”   Or the “Notch-ee” can flat out “Deny it”, basically you calling you a liar.  Finally, the “Notch-ee” can just “Ignore it,” and the Notch just disappears into the ether, a situation that could have been really useful out there in reality.

Notch is a self-policing network, for every “Notch” request and its associated rating that you make shows up on your public profile, as does the Notch-ee’s “Notch” response and respective rating.  So you really want to think twice before notching that pretty blond from the pool party during the summer of high school senior year, or that fine foreign fellow from your summer abroad.  Or else, your wall might look a little something like this:

BONES301′s Notches:

NOTCH: dragonqueen532.  My Rating: Stoked
dragonqueen532′s Response:  DENIAL

NOTCH:  amy311.  My Rating:  Stoked
amy311′s Response:  DENIAL

NOTCH: ilovedogs231.  My Rating: Stoked
ilovedogs231′s Response:  DENIAL

NOTCH: sexynurse332. My Rating: Stoked
sexynurse332′s Response:  ACCEPTANCE.  Rating:  Bummed

Sounds fun, right?  Now, I don’t know who would actually join this network. I wouldn’t. I doubt my friends would.  But I have to imagine that there’s a lot of people out there who’d dive right into this.  Probably the same people who take cell-phone pictures of themselves in their panties, or shirtless with their bicep barbwire tattoos blazing, and then post them on their MySpace profiles without a second thought.   Most likely the network would be populated by four kinds of people.  1. The Dickheads: Those who want a public place to post their past conquests – a virtual “notch” on the bed post, if you will.  2.  The Guilt-Ridden: Those who want to use it as a wall of shame, a public confessional of the regrettable wild days.  3.  The Nostalgic:  The ones trying to relive those days before they lost the hair on their head and gained it in their ears. 4. The Rest of Us: The silent anonymous voyeurs catching up on gossip from the past decade.  “He…and She?  Really?”   Or “Oh man, he actually tried to notch her?”  Or maybe even “He…and He?  I had no idea!”

So, I’m not too sure about the audience, but I’m confident that this is just the direction that Social Networking needs to head.  I like to think that Notch will be the network that could reunite past lovers of old.   I like to think that Notch will be the network to force adults to come to grips with the decisions and relationships that they made as young men and women. And I like to think that Notch could lead to the most massive explosion in the divorce rate in the history of the United States.  An unfortunate, yet not entirely unimpressive, feat.  Just imagine accidentally stumbling upon your wife’s Notch Profile.  That is some information you DON’T want to uncover!

And that’s my idea.  And I hereby give this one to you, Internet.  As a gift.  As a thank you.  For providing me with everything I could ever imagine, other than a way to drink you.  So take it.  Make it explode.  Run with it.  God speed.

Reconnecting Regret, One Notch at a Time.