During the past week, I’ve watched — via facebook updates — the demise of a “friend’s” relationship and the subsequent unraveling of this person’s mind right before my eyes.
This person is a female. We’ll call her Beans, because she likes to spill ’em.
Beans has been unemployed for 15 months as well. The jobs that she had in the past weren’t high paying, so I’m not really sure how she couldn’t find a simple job for a little income in the meantime. But she was holding out for some golden egg, apparently.
Lately Beans updates with things like, “I feel like such a failure as a woman and a mate.”
I know! Doesn’t it make you want to love her? Out of context, updates can be beguiling.
Take this one: “My heart is broken and I’m awake at 5am. I want to break everything in my house.”
I know! Don’t you feel sorry for her? It’s almost like she’s playing out the lyrics of a song.
But it’s the entire picture. Beans sends out invites that say, “Please join me for a luncheon of beans and drama. It will last my entire life.”
This is how she announced her breakup:
So Here It Is Folks: I am looking for a roommate. I do not wish to further discuss personal details, but I really would rather not leave my home of 3 Years. 2 bdr, Laundry, Parking Space, Hardwood Floors, Sun Porch, Back Porch. $975/month (utilities not included) Aug 1st.
Between that update and now, there have been over one zillion updates. This is no exaggeration. How’s this one?
“And there’s a beautiful rainbow and we talk out logistics. I think I can say that this is the most ‘Adult Moment’ of my life”
And then she’ll follow that with a,
“Bless my friends and family. I’m not gonna lie, I’m going to need all the love and support I can get as I work through this transition. ♥ ♥ ♥”
The question is, do I need to know all this? I don’t really. I could hide her. Or delete her. But we have a tribal sense of gossip. For how many years the campfire became the radio, then the TV. And now it’s twitter, facebook, MySpace. We have the need to know that someone else’s life is more miserable than the one we live. We have the need to talk about it.
The problem with my description of this event is that you don’t know Beans (literally and figuratively – honk), so you’re outside the tribal understanding of her. Were you in my tribal circle with Beans and me, you’d give a shit. Well, more of a shit than you care now. Why, because we both would know her and you’d want to talk about it too. It’s in our makeup to do this.
Perhaps in 10 years, there will be a study that says, “People who bare their souls on social media live longer than those who stay bottled up.” We’ll turn into fire hoses of blatantly bad status updates for the sake of a longer life. We’ll need social media en lieu of professional therapy. It will do what the Apple computer has done for average creative folks. It will streamline it. Make it easier to achieve happiness.
Or it will be the straw that breaks backs. I wonder if suddenly Beans’ facebook is going to go quiet, and I’m going to hear through the grapevine that she’s been institutionalized. She’ll be tied up in a straightjacket rocking in a corner of a padded cell mumbling, “I’m a failure as a woman and a mate. I’m a failure as a woman and a mate.”
I mean, Beans is the kind of person who fights with facebook like it’s just as much a friend as you or I are. When she gets negative criticism, she starts deleting updates and lashing out in updates. Once, she was so angry about someone saying something negative that Beans decided to take a facebook sabbatical. To prove that she wasn’t addicted to facebook, she purged it from her life for, what, six days?
During those days off, she admitted that she “liked” a couple friends’ updates. And she also broke her fast to update when the Hawks won the Stanley Cup. “But that was it!,” she said. Those were the only things she did. Promise!
Lately I’ve been exposed to more and more information that says, “YOU must be involved with social media.” And I am. But I haven’t been updating much in the way of words. I’ve been too off put by people like Beans.
That’s why I post here, I guess. It puts me out there. I’m a part of the social media periphery. I get the feeling that if I put updates on facebook, I’m shoving it in someone’s face … like a dog after it shits on the carpet.
Who knows. I just wanted to talk about it. There’s no wrapup. There’s no conclusion.
Do you have some beans you want to spill? If so … spill ’em! What do you hate today?
Le Café Wittypoots 