The stalker's book of irritating faces

The internet has brought people watching into a different arena. You can see someone do their daily routine on a YouTube video, read and track their every move on Twitter, see what their interests and passions are on a forum. You can find out what they wore that day, what they had for dinner, and with certain people who over share (that shall remain nameless), you even know how many times they got off the night before.

In some cases you learn more about a person by watching their videos and reading their words online, than you can by watching their hand gestures and lip movements from the bushes across the street with a telephoto lens. Am I right, guys? What some call “cyber stalking”, others call “sitting in my swivel chair and wearing a bib to catch the drool while I look through all 793 of your photos instead of driving past your house three times a day, hoping to catch a glimpse as you walk by the window”. Or, you know, “social networking”.

I’ve found that I’m occasionally more interested in a person via their online dealings than I am if they’re in front of my face. I think it’s mostly about safety: I can watch them without worrying that they’ll come up to me. I can click an X and they’ll go away. I can laugh at pictures of them and they’ll never know. I can pick my nose and wear my pjs covered in baby chickens without fear of discovery. But there’s one site I’m on the fence about - Facebook.

Truthfully I don’t spend a lot of time on it. I only reopened my account this past summer (which I swore I’d never do after my very large Aunt, whose main hobbies are sucking down troughs of sweet tea and reading Harlequin novels in a recliner all day, bombarded my wall with messages not three minutes after I clicked on accept) when pictures of me started cropping up all over the place. I decided I would reactivate it so I could swap photos with my friends easily, etc and so forth. And for the most part it’s worked out quite well, especially since my Aunt has now forsaken FB in lieu of some new gaming site.

I’m not sure why, but I find Twitter far more interesting. (Maybe because I only use it for bloggers and there's no pressure to behave.) The only reasons I really pay attention to someone’s Facebook updates are if: they look like they can benefit me in some way, I’d like to see them naked, they are about me or contain pictures of me, or I happened to see a vulgar word. Vulgarity always gets my attention.

I don’t mind admitting that I’m very particular about who I accept friend requests from. The main reason for that is that I don’t really like people. The second, and more accurate reason, is that if I start accepting whoever, my blog could get out there. Then I’ll be forced to start a new one about baking pies and making flower arrangements, rather than whom I got busy with the other week (Which, in case you were wondering, is the 43 year old I haven’t written about because he has the link to this blog and that would be so rude (right?). Hello, R. Round two? RAWR!). And no one wants that, least of all me. I’m terrible at flower arrangements and I prefer cake.

But there are people that I can’t say no to. Though I am particular about whom I accept there’s no way I can turn down a friend request from, say, my kid’s grandmother. Or as I like to call her, “The Non-In-Law”. (My mother calls her “Heinous Hair”, but that’s another story.) I don’t particularly want her to have my updates and I definitely don’t want to see my feed bombarded with her ridiculous mystery eggs and fake lost cows. And it may sound completely illogical, but when she sent me an instant message through there the other day, I got really aggravated. Contact online was not necessary – especially since she has a million other ways to get a hold of me. Stalker.

Hell, before we’d gone on our first date, Sam sent me a request. I was absolutely appalled. I remember saying to my sister, “The motherfucker has gone and infiltrated my Facebook! If I say no, he’ll think I’m hiding something. If I say yes, he’ll find out things I might not be ready for him to find out yet...which doesn’t count as hiding, so shut your pie hole. I mean, give me a chance to say hello before you feel me up, am I right?”

“What? Feel you up? But I thought you hadn’t...”

“Go away! You suck at this game!”

No matter how particular I am, I always end up with a few people that make me want to vomit. I occasionally put up a bit about my kid, but it’s never really touchy feely. Write a whole post that makes fun of her giant behind yet also shows how much I love her? Sure, no problem! Write a paragraph update on FB about how she makes tears come to my eyes every time she punches me in the ovaries, not because it hurts, but because she’s such a glorious miracle from God? Hell no.

When a certain friend posts a status about her toddler or puts up photos of her family I think, “How are you even old enough to have a family? Are you on uppers? Please, for the love of Christ, stop posting every five minutes about how wonderful your life is and how your child said something completely dull.”

Case and point –

One of my updates: “So apparently my crumb snatcher starts Kindergarten on Wednesday. Man, I feel old.”

One of her updates, paraphrased because writing it outright makes me gag: “Like, waiting on my fantastic husband to get home with my little prince. I’m so lucky. Blessings and, like, flowers, hearts and heavenly trumpets, venereal disease is a total myth, ya’ll!”

I can handle that kind of thing in small doses, but this is like an everyday occurrence...saying the same exact shit. And each update is half a fucking page long. Get a mommy blog for fucks sake! Ahem. I’m hoping I can delete her unobtrusively in the near future.

Don’t even get me started on the damn farm and treasure hunting stuff. I haven’t explored it all, but I asked a friend just what exactly they were supposed to do on this Farmville shit. Apparently all you have to do is click on things and holy crap! You’re a farmer! There was a longer explanation, but it all boils down to this: It’s the most boring “game” I’ve ever heard of in my life. Maybe even more coma inducing that golf.

But, as of this past weekend, you know what the best thing about Facebook is?

Signing in, glancing at your feed to see if there’s anything there about you (because hello, that’s what it’s all about), and instead being slapped in the face with a picture of the guy you’ve been seeing and a woman that’s hotter and skinnier that you. It sucks, even if you weren’t crazy about him. Because no woman wants to find out, through the fucking internet, that the guy she let put it in her ass, against her usual better judgment, has been shacking up with someone that’s better looking.

The only positive aspect is that I don’t have to wonder anymore. Now I know why he hasn’t called lately – It’s not because he’s dead or I offended him. He’s just balls deep in some hot old broad.

I guess my main issue is this – It isn’t blog land. I can’t say anything I want. Well I could, but I was taught to respect my elders and, as much as the Non-In-Law and other older family members irritate me, I can’t bring myself to call them fuckers or demand they stop bombarding me with their stupid cartoon crops. And I can’t tell my old friend that I don’t give a rip roaring shit about her completely generic kid. And I can’t post a comment on a photo that says, “It really doesn’t matter if you’re a little bit prettier than me. He’s just going to shove your face in the pillow anyway. I said What What in the Butt.” Because feelings could get hurt.

And because, in case you weren’t already aware, Facebook is real life dot com.