I Used to Like People Before Facebook

From the title of this post you may surmise that I am an evil bitch that hates people. That is only partially true. I truly hate only a select few people in this world. I hatelight (yes, I made this phrase up and doesn't it sound like some kinda diet drink? Maybe it should be called HATElite—that seems more catchy!) annoying members of my Facebook fam. I don't really hate them, I just hate their stupidy at times.

Since I've been on paid vacation (ahem, was laid off from my most current job due to a huge merger/acquisition), I've had more time to spend online applying to new jobs and networking.

More time online = more time spent looking at my damn BB = more time noticing how fucking annoying people can be when it comes to Facebook.

This post is a list of my Facebook-related pet peeves. Nothing more than that. I'm doing a list because I'm in Vegas on vacation visiting my rents right now and this is the quickest way to get a damn post done. My most recent post was from October 2009...forgive me, my fellow hatewatchers, real life gets in the way of virtual life—as it should!

MY FACEBOOK PET PEEVES

(in no particular order and yes, I have done a few of the below acts before I realized how annoying I was)

Weather-related shit. We get it, we get it. Cold sucks and warm rules. Get over it! Especially when the weather that is occurring is normal for where you live. For example, I live in Jersey (fistpump!) and it gets cold during the winter and humidly hot during the summer. I don't post a status complaining about this each and every fucking time the weather is not to my liking. My long-term goal is to move west. I'm done complaining about it, I'm just gonna focus on my goal.

Games. Please don't ask me to Bejewel you, or give you a glock for Mafia Wars. I don't wanna grow a Green Patch. I'm 32 and can find more interesting things to do during the day (especially during the WORK day) than play some dumbass games. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Wii Fit, but come on now people.

24/7/365 negative people. If I wanted to deal with a bunch of emos all day, I'd work at Hot Topic. Seriously, sometimes life sucks. Sometimes you write a negative status to vent. But, EVERY FUCKING DAY??? You must be kidding me with this shit. Yes, life is SO HARD that your mas puto yuppie ass has time to whine and rant on FB via a $200+ PDA about every fucking thing that pissed you off all day. Why not try blogging a couple times a month? (Wink!) It'll save you some time and people will not defriend you anymore. Or they still might. Whatever.

Bullshit friend requests. If you are not my friend or at least a friendly acquaintance that I recently clicked with and will probably get to know better over the years, please don't request me. It's just that simple. If I didn't like you in high school or vice versa, then the same is probably true now. I've lived without getting a daily status update from you in almost 15 years, then I can probably live out the rest of my life not viewing pictures of your babies and pets. Merci!

Big upping spouses and the gifts that they bought you and/or the places they took you for various occasions. Women tend to this this A LOT (I have done it one time, but that was Guy Savoy!). Are you planning to auction off your husby sometime soon and want to tout his positive traits? While I'm very happy that you're happy, do I need to know every single thing ya'll did for your anniversary/birthday/Columbus Day? Isn't it assumed that you love your husband? You don't need to status it, fool.

MySpace-esque profile pics. We get that you find yourself highly attractive. Ladies, I understand that you love your cleavage. But, do you need to crop profile photos in certain ways to ensure your jugs are waaaay prominent? It's FACEbook, not TITSbook. I'm not a hater, I love your breast-eses, I love my breast-eses, we all love our breast-eses. (And we all want ice cream!) But, dude, put that skank shit on MySpace. For realz!!

Also, those with LOOKATME! profile pics tend to also be chronic profile pic updaters. I know that you are just way cute and have many cute pics of yourself (taken by yourself with your PDA), but no need to update daily, okay? I bet Angelina and JLo don't even update their profile pics every day/hour/minute...and they should, they're hot! Now, if you get gender reassignment surgery, then yes, please update your profile pic, so I can give you props on how great you look! I shouldn't even talk shit about profile pics, as mine has been, for months, Bobby Lee (you NOT funny!) holding one of the American Girl dolls.

Chronic status updaters. This is touchy subject as many of my dearest friends are suffering from chronic status update syndrome. It's the nagging need to post status all day long about EVERYTHING you do. Of course, I'm not saying that every item I status (yes, I've made it a verb) is groundshaking, but then again, I update my status a couple times a month, not a couple times an hour.

I know Socrates believed that "the unexamined life is not worth living," but I highly doubt he meant that you should update status each time you have a snack or take a dump. And I beg of you, please do not update your status while on vacay...enjoy your time and focus on the moment with the person/people you went on the trip with! Here's my status...The Hatewatcher thinks you're a complete douche and does not care what you had for dinner every night of the past month.

Attention hounds. You know who you are out there. Some people insist on writing vague and short (and sometimes medically alarming) status updates that will surely draw a bunch of "what's wrong?????!!!" responses. If you need attention that bad, you need to get off FB and get some damn help already. Or, just apply to be on season two of Jersey Shore-ah.

"Deep" shit. Stop posting several paragraphs of poetry, quotations, etc., as your status updates. We get it, you know how to read and have picked up a book at least once (or can Google pretty damn well!). Now, let me call myself out. I currently have lyrics from a Nina Simone song (LOVE that woman and that voice!). But, I limited it to a couple lines, not THE ENTIRE SONG. And for you Jesus freaks, puhlease stop posting big-ass (hyphen or not?) chunks of the Bible. I have already read the entire thing and own a copy. Didn't know that did ya??? See, I keep the surprises coming, my friends.

Captain Obvious. Let's establish from this point forward, that in the modern world, Mondays suck and Fridays rule. Nuff said. Stop posting every fucking Monday about how blue you are and every fucking Friday about how you can't wait for the weekend. NO SHIT! You gotta work for a living or become a fame whore like Tila Tequila. Get over it.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of FB pet peeves. I plan to write a follow-up post with more shit I hate regarding the FB world.

Got ideas about this post or future ones? Email them to hatewatchersblog@gmail.com. I'd love to hate from you! (Pun intended.)

Singled Out

My dear friend Lady X is a beautiful, caring, intelligent woman with a flourishing career as a communications professional. She has a great sense of humor and loves to watch quirky indie films. Her shoe, clothing and accessories games are all on point. But, there is something tragically wrong with her...she is over 25 and SINGLE. Gasp! Heavens, no! Burn her at the stake now!

You may wonder — as so many in her life seem to do — how is a woman like that single? They are boggled and bewildered. I'm not, because I've been single and loved it. Don't get me wrong, I love my dear husby and would never wish to be without him — we have a wonderful life together. But, when I was single, life was good as well. Coming and going as I pleased. Leaving the apartment a mess or cleaning it as I deemed fit. My apartment's super would fix anything that went wrong upon being paged (as opposed to the joys of home ownership where anything that could go wrong does).

Being single for a few years made me the woman, wife and mother I am today. I am confident, happy and love a challenge. During my single years, I realized how valuable I am and was determined to stay single unless the right guy came along. I could care less if I was dateless to parties and thrived on being able to make plans based on my schedule alone. I strongly believe my happiness and purpose during this time lead me to fall in love with now husby. More importantly, I was open to the idea of not finding anyone at all.

The old saying "you can't be loved until you love yourself" is so true. And in order to love yourself, you have to know yourself. Now, I'm not saying that if you haven't been single since you began dating that you are missing something from your life. I'm simply saying, let's lay off the single folks and let them lead their lives. I definitely am no authority on relationships just because I happen to be in one. I know how hard it is, especially as a single woman, to date (or not date). The constant search for one's "better half" can be exhausting. That's probably why I barely put in the effort during my single days!

Back to Lady X...sorry but if you are familiar with any of my other posts, you'll know that I digress a bit. A few weeks ago, Lady X and I were at a barbecue (the same one the Breastfeeding Nazi was at, by the way. If you haven't read this post yet, check it out...it's quite a doozy). Lady X and I have a mutual friend — Lady Y we'll call her — that is married with two children. Lady Y is one of the most loving and gracious people you will ever meet. She also happens to be very, er, forward, when it comes to her friends and their quests to find significant others and start families.

I always laugh when I think of all the cute e-mails she would send me containing jpegs of mixed-raced babies. These e-mails were supposed convince me to get crackin' on making babies with my then boyfriend now husby. I never minded her "gentle" hints because I knew she was half kidding and the half that was serious meant well. Lady Y is highly family-oriented and one of my role models. She only wants the best for her close friends (and everyone else for that matter).

Towards the end of the event, Lady X and I were conversing (probably about movies and books, our two fave topics) and Lady Y brought up the subject of having children. More specifically, when Lady X was going to start already. Lady X and I giggled and pretended to roll our eyes. We knew the drill. Then Lady Y chimed in something about having to bring Lady X to the sperm bank.

I, for once, was speechless. I couldn't even look at either of them. I didn't know whether to be upset or not. After all, Lady X is a grown woman and didn't need me to conduct any opening arguments for her. So, I chuckled uncomfortably and said, "[Lady Y], sperm bank? Whoa..."

A few days later Lady X and I were chatting and the sperm bank conversation came up. She revealed that she was, like me, flabbergasted and unsure of what to say and/or think. We both agreed that many people thought being single was like a pox on your life. Or to quote Carrie from Sex in the City, "when did being alone become the modern-day equivalent of being a leper?"

A leper Lady X is NOT. Yet, Lady X and I both knew that Lady Y didn't mean to be hurtful. She was trying to be cute and jokey (is that a word?), but failed in our eyes because the line was crossed. Lady X revealed to me that at a recent family dinner, her grandfather proclaimed, "guess you're giving up on finding a man, huh?" Nice. Well, if these types of comments don't motivate one to hurry up and find a man/woman/breathing creature, then I don't know what will!