I have pet peeves with the internet sometimes

But then again, I guess everyone does. Right?

But sometimes these are big things and other times they are small things. Like facebook. I'm on it, but after realizing that I don't really care what everyone I know is doing at every moment (though I am a bit of a gossip), I cleaned out my list. I keep facebook simple. I do my best not to overshare and leave that either for my online journal with a friends only option or post in this blog where no one knows who I am unless they really try to connect the dots. On my facebook, I have my brother and parents, my inlaws, some of C's relatives (and trust me, hes got a big family and most of them are on facebook), all of my extended relatives who know how to turn on a computer (cousins, aunts, uncles), my friends (both close and not so close) and a handful of other people (some people I graduated high school with 10 years ago that I still keep tabs on even though we aren't really friends but would meet up for coffee if we ran into each other, friends of the family) and finally some of my online friends who I have grown close to over the years. Less than 200 people. Which is low considering both of our families. 

But even out of these people, you get the people who overshare. You know who they are. Chances are you have a few of them on your friends list if you have succumbed to the addiction of facebook. They have their profile set to public, have 1500 friends or some other insanely high number, and they set their statuses to things that make you do the uncomfortable laugh and wonder if you should comment or just pretend you didn't read it. You feel embarassed for them.

Fast foward to tonight. A friend breaks up with her boyfriend. I'm guessing, knowing her, that she posted this right after it happened. Her emotions are high. All she did was change her relationship status to "in a relationship" to "single" and then she takes it to every other internet outlet she uses, including sites like twitter. So another random person uses the like feature to choose to show that she likes this change. The dumped girl, with her emotions still high, states her displeasure in this status action. The other person comes back with a positive statement somewhere along the lines of the many possibilities of a single woman. Nothing mean but the dumped girl comes back with "I'M NOT IN THE MOOD!!"

Excuse me? If you are not in the mood to deal with the fallout of posting such personal information on such a public site, then WHY THE FUCK DID YOU POST IT IN THE FIRST PLACE?? Don't bitch people out because they may have a clearer head than you and try to be positive about the situation. If its that hard to deal with, don't change your status until you are ready to deal with the backlack. I have a friend who had her status set as married for the entire time of her seperation from her husband and didn't change the relationship status til her divorce papers came in and it was official. Her response to why she waited? "It's none of their god damn business. When I'm ready to tell and be able to deal with the responses, I'll post about it. That may be never but if that's the case, then so be it."

I wish more people would practice this. I'm not saying I'm perfect in all of this. When I quit my job, I ranted on facebook of all places. But we all have moments like this. I regret it now but I did it and from that point on, I've dialed it back and left that for a more private audience. And I have to say, this is hard to post. Cause as much as these people sometimes make me embarassed for them, I was raised in a small town. All small towns are bred to be gossip machines and it was raised in me to be a gossip. Its particularly bad when I'm with my girlfriends on my mom and aunt. But I fight against my need to know and the point of "when is too much information really too much information?"

But I'm tired and this happened just as I was about to log off of the internet and I needed to get it off my chest so I don't manage to work it out in my dreams. (cause im sorta bad for doing that, according to hubby of course).

My final thought on all of this: People of the internet, please think before you post and who your posting audience is. It could save you and your friends list alot of frustration. You do your part, and I'll do the best to do my part.

xoxo
K