Anything you can like, I can like better

I'm in the midst of a very intense love-hate relationship with facebook. I love that it allows me to peek into other peoples lives, but I generally hate what I find, when I'm looking. I also hate, that facebook has become this whole 'highschool' playground, where people manipulate information - about themselves and others, to create a 'mask' of what they want to present to the world. It's not true...the photos are posed and pouty; status updates are usually poorly executed examples of people trying to verbalise thoughts beyond their mental capacity. It used to be good...now, it's evil.

It's not often I glance at Johns page, sometimes I just like to know if he's made any changes, put on any photos (changed a certain relationship status...even though he's not one to 'wear his heart on his face' so-to-speak). Usually my visits to his page end in an emotional eating binge, because I have witnessed some tarts attempt at being cute; more irritating is when he responds. When he puts up photos, like he did today, sometimes I want to comment - but I usually don't. There's been a terribly attractive, but equally obnoxious hoe-bag hanging around his page for a while now and it drives me crazy when I see things like her comments on his pictures. Like this little jem "EPIC jealousy" written on one of his landscape pictures. What the fuck does that even mean? Go back to the 90's, when you were probably born and find out the way 'epic' is supposed to be used. Dumb. Ass. She 'likes' things here and there - I don't 'like' lightly on facebook, but when I saw a beautiful photo John had posted I 'liked' it, even though she had bet me to it, and commented. I pondered for 30 minutes or so, after stuffing my face with Easter chocolate. Fuck it, I thought, I'm going to comment too. So I did. See, it's a sickness.

Worse still, facebook has bridged generational gaps. I can scarcely attend a family function, without someone talking about facebook. Just today, my 73 year old Nanna asked me if I would be putting a photo of her cookies on my facebook page?! It's disturbing to reveal a piece of news and have to admit that I found out on facebook. No Mum, it is not appropriate for us to talk about who wished me happy birthday on facebook. God, when did life get so complicated and fraught with awkward?

Most of all, I hate that I can get worked up about this stuff; that it can consume mental energies and dominate conversations. It should have been called IN YOUR FACEbook. It's like a bad accident scene, where you know you should look away, but you can't bring yourself to do so.

SB xx