There are some people, over the past couple years, to whom I have found myself unintentionally devoted to despite how painfully aware I am of all the gritty details in their mundane lives.
Our relationship started when I entered the vast world of social media and our relationship started with a “following” or a “friending.” Soon enough my newsfeeds were transformed into a forum of what seemed like sad or embarrassing diary excerpts.
In case you were wondering, yesterday, Emily broke up with her boyfriend, but today she is “single and ready to mingle.” Jenna just watched Mean Girls for the first time and is “feeling swaggy.” Gabby announced that she hates “ gurlz who steelz her boifwend.” And David ate a chili cheese dog and “ is on the toilet #oops.”
It’s called oversharing. Let me emphasize the “over” part. I am constantly getting minute to minute updates on Emily’s love life and I’m 99% sure that Jenna has a reflex to post on Facebook every single thought that passes through her head. And ultimately my day would just not be the same if I didn’t see at least one complaint from Gabby. I have never gone so far as to share a meal with any of these people, so why they feel the need to share their bathroom habits is beyond me.
Many people ask why I don’t just defriend them or block oversharers, and believe me, occasionally I do. But a handful of people are just too entertaining to delete from my newsfeed. It’s like passing the scene of car accident and not being able to turn away.
Oh? You got new shoes? Tell me more, did you get shoelaces and socks also? Really continue, I’m fascinated.
“So much hw! School sux!” Please, enlighten me with this enthralling discovery as this has never been said before.
It’s a constant struggle whether or not to make the final effort and click “block,” but there’s always that tiny, twisted part of me that takes pleasure getting updated about how annoying your boyfriend is because he won’t answer your texts. It could be the same part of me that enjoys reading those trashy tabloids or that is addicted to watching One Tree Hill or any other teen drama show. It can’t be helped and I’ve come to the conclusion my life just would not be the same without a constant stream of updates about how your cat got sick and you had to take him to the vet.
Sometimes I wonder if Mark Zuckerberg ever thought of limiting the amount of Facebook statuses someone could make in one day or somehow filtering out the really sad ones, but then I just imagine him sitting in his office somewhere and just laughing because it gets to a point where that’s all you can really do.
