In today’s day of social media sites, there is one megabeast
that has made everyone its bitch. Yes, my friends, I’m talking about Facebook.
This ‘social’ media tool has allowed for me to know when my friends are grocery
shopping, if they’re still friends with that bitch from high school and how
often they poop. While we all have a handful of friends who ‘won’t join
Facebook out of principle’, I’ve decoded their reasoning to mean one of the
following three things:
1) “I’m
worried I will look like a loser because I don’t have enough friends.”
2) “I
don’t understand social media websites.”
3) “I
go out on a lot of heavy drug and drinking benders and don’t have the time or
energy to untag myself from photos on a regular basis.”
Whatever the reason may be, let’s just be clear about one
thing: If you don’t have Facebook, you’re not getting invited to parties. If you’re part of reason #3 for not joining
Facebook, you’re probably doing yourself and your future rehab bill a favour. Jussayin’.
Like so many of you, I fucking hate Facebook. By this, I
mean: I can’t stop fucking checking it.
I hate that I care what you did last night; I don’t know why, but I hate
your face; if you post one more political status, I’m fucking deleting you and your
pictures of your stupid bachelorette party make me want to stab myself in the shoulder/WHY
WASN’T I INVITED!?
Whatever your relationship might be with this mind-numbing
site, we all have different categories of people in our friends list. Some of
them you care about, and others… well, you find yourself wishing them a firey
death on a regular basis. I know what you’re thinking, but unfriending would
just be too easy.
I’ve broken these people into 6 categories.
The Significant Other
There are a few things to consider when communicating with
your shmoopy on Facebook:
First of all, do you have any shame? No? Then go ahead and
post all of your disgusting love-filled messages all over their wall and let us
judge you while we eat spicy peanuts in bed. If you do
have shame, keep in mind that with every cheesy message you write, it
becomes increasingly challenging to think of you as an equal. (Sidenote: I know
90% of people with smartphones use them while they’re on the toilet. Don’t
pretend you don’t. With that in mind, when I see horrifically sappy Facebook
posts, I like to think of the author of said post sitting on the john while
they profess their love. Take this wisdom with you, folks. Life just got a
little brighter.)
Secondly, how many pictures have you posted of you and your
poopybear kissing? If there is more than 1, that’s too many and you deserve a
good swift chair to the face.
Lastly, if you’re the kind of person that updates your
relationship status on Facebook, then please, for the love of god, only change
it once you know you’ve broken up
and/or started dating someone for realsies.
Keeping with this theme, I’d also like for you to keep your emotional
status updates to yourself. I don’t give a flying fuck if you’re quoting some
song you heard that touched your inner
being; you sound like a whiny twelve year-old and I’ll assume you spend a
good portion of your time crying and watching Twilight. Guess what? We’re not
friends anymore.
The Good Friends
In a perfect world, my Facebook friends list would be
compiled solely of my good, dear friends. These are the people I care about,
and they post shit I want to read. I can tease them to their face about the
dumb shit they write about, and we can bask together in our shame every weekend
when the photos of our latest drinking binge surface. It’s not a perfect world,
though, and Sue from accounting is going to add you as a friend, and you can’t
do fucking shit about it. This brings me to my next category.
The Coworkers
Way to rain on my fucking parade, colleagues. Now I have to
create a whole new limited profile for you, so you can’t know about the sex
shows I attend and all of the blow I did last night. When I call in sick on
Monday, you’re going to rat me out and I’m going to have to stab you in the
bathroom. If you had just minded your own business and kept your friend request
to yourself, we wouldn’t be standing here in a puddle of blood, hashing it out
Freddy-style.*
*Not exactly an accurate depiction of real life. Dramatics
added for color.
The Former Friends
These are probably the people I spend the most time
stalking. You know those nights when you end up looking at someone’s wedding
photos where you don’t know a single attendee, but you find yourself judging
the décor and thinking that these people are fucking lame? Ya. We’re never getting that time back, guys.
Seriously, though, stalking former friends can result in you
missing them, hating them and/or envying them. Sometimes, all three emotions
can occur when browsing through a single photo album, and you find yourself
lingering over the ‘like’ button and wondering if it would be weird, nice, or
creepy to click it. It’s probably creepy, since the album was from 2008, but go
ahead a click it. Stir the pot a little.
The Acquaintances
These are the people you contact once a year because
Facebook told you it’s their birthday.
You should probably delete them.
The Family Members
Your relationship with your family will really affect how
you perceive this category. If your family members are your BFFs, then
la-dee-fucking-da, keep everything public and embrace your Honesty is the Best
Policy way of life. For the rest of us,
yet another limited profile is created, double checked, triple checked, and checked
again on a regular basis every time Facebook goes and changes their
motherfucking privacy settings.
There are, of course, members of my family who have an
all-access pass, namely my sister, who probably wishes she didn’t sometimes…
but as for the aunts and uncles who saw me play baby Jesus during our
reenactment of the nativity scene once upon a Christmas, it’s probably best to
keep them at a distance.
I’ve contemplating deleting my Facebook dozens of times, but
who are we kidding? That’s the cyber version of social banishment and I’m not
ready to become a pariah just yet. When I’m alone with my 14 cats, living an
envy-filled life spent observing the trips, parties and excursions of
friends-gone-by, I’ll reevaluate. But for now, I’ll continue to judge you from
the comfort of my peanut-filled bed.
****
OH! And I thought I should share with you the cookies that I made for my birthday/St. Patrick's day.
I thought of you guys with every polka dot I dropped on those godforsaken clovers. (If you remember...
this was supposed to be a baking blog, but I'm far too vulgar.)
