What's On Your Mind?

I have a strict personal policy when it comes to Facebook. I like to keep my Facebook profile weird. What do I mean by that? Simply that I try not to over share, I try to not bemoan how I feel that day, and I try to post things that I think will make people laugh. Especially the ones who I actually see on a regular basis, and not the ones who never talked to me in High School, yet want to be Facebook friends anyway (what's up with that?).

Sure, I rant and rave sometimes, but never about politics. Usually my Facebook rants are all about stupid Hollywood remakes, and bad music. But mostly I'm just actively making sure I don't engage in a far too often Facebook trap. That which I mentioned above, over sharing. The biggest example of over sharing that I see far too often on the Facebooks, is that which occurs by people in relationships.

You might known both parts of the relationship, or only one, but it doesn't matter. Both of them usually engage in over sharing. What is it about couples over sharing that makes it a particularly unique brand of Facebook hell you ask? Because there's nothing worse when you're scrolling down your news feed, looking for fun and snarky posts by friends, only to discover a picture of a couple making out like dogs in heat. They think it's cute, you feel nauseous. There's always a caption with this picture, something along the lines of “I know he is truly the one!!!” It seems in this modern age the way you discover if someone is your soul mate, or not, is by ramming your tongue down their throat in an attempt to find it.

Now I'm not against people dating, or relationships. Some people do have true love, and that's great. It's also great that most of them don't feel the need to celebrate their love by posting about it all over Facebook. It all comes down to “relationship grandstanding”. Most the posts designed to show how superior their relationship is to yours, or how much more fulfilling their lives are since they are not longer single like you. I am single, and I am a little bitter about dating, I freely admit it. It's an issue for me. However, I would suspect that those of you who are in perfectly fine relationships would agree with me on the need for a lack of photographic evidence of the more passionate moments.

Peppered in between the couples who feel the need to out do each other, are the posts of various pictures. I'm not talking about your personal pictures or Instagram shots. Nope. I'm talking about those pictures which have no real clear origin, but all have things along the line of “If you don't share/like this picture, then you are clearly the worse human being who ever walked the face of planet earth” attached to them. No one is exempt from this rule. If Gandhi was on Facebook, and if he didn't share your picture of a dog delivering roses to someone, it's an automatic shun. “Yeah, sure he helped a lot of people, BUT HE DIDN'T SHARE THE DOG PICTURE!!”

So yes, there is a duality to being on Facebook. It can be fun, and silly, and weird—the way I try to keep it. Or it can provide a glimpse into the personal life of our friends that we never really wanted. Is it really too much to ask that one use a slight bit of common sense before blowing up their feed with make out photos, and political statements? Remember, kids, we're happy you're in love. We just would prefer you not to show it as often.