No thank you, I don’t wish to add random people on my Facebook. Actually, hold that thought; yes I might add you just to see what you really are like beneath all that sleaze, ahem I mean charm. Too many selfies warrants some sort of an arrest, because 436 selfies later surely there is someone in your delusional universe that could be coerced into making a guest appearance into one of those 436 Lone Ranger-esque pictures. Where is Tonto?
Precise number, I know. What can I say I painstakingly analyse each one of those pictures for no other reason than for the greater good of humanity. You can thank me later, presumably when they catch the sociopath in question. And yes, once such social analysis is over, I delete the sociopath(s) and block them too. Depending on my disposition at the time they might even be reported; don’t ask me what I’m reporting them for though. The mind is a fickle!!
For all the ills people proclaim that Facebook bestowed on humanity, one thing is for sure that the dating charade is never quite going to be the same, thanks to Zuckerberg and Co. Like the saying goes it is how you utilise things that can either make it a bad or good thing. I am of the camp that Facebook is a positive addition to our otherwise mundane lives. Of course there is always going to be few culprits out there that abuse this social medium and ruin it for the rest of us nosey folks.
Prior to Facebook, you were unable to pre-empt any potential dating disasters. You weren’t able to suss out sleaze bags lurking in the periphery waiting for that opportune moment to strike and before you know it you are coerced into thinking that you are dating an Adonis of sorts, and you go through the traditional method of wasting time and energy dating this person only to find out 18months down the line that he is anything but. Thankfully Facebook has put an end to such callous bureaucracy. With few clicks you can ascertain everything about your potential date.
Going out on a first date with someone isn’t a pre-requisite these days. Hearing people utter words like “oh how about I take you out for dinner at 8pm to my favourite restaurant and we can get to know each other” is far and few in between and sure as hell you won’t be hearing a potential date say to you “oh where do you live so I can come and pick you up”. I blame part Facebook part Google Earth for the latter. Curiosity is dead, buried in chambers embellished with conveyor belts of selfies and second by second status updates.
Side note: a friend of mine once stumbled on her boyfriend’s ex girlfriend’s Facebook page (bit of a mouthful). Somehow after scouring few of the femme fatale’s illustrious pictures she felt so threatened by this entity that no longer existed but in her mind. Needless to say the boyfriend wasn’t aware of how Facebook turned his girlfriend into a nocturnal detective. In fact he even instructed her from the onset of their relationship that they are not to add each other on Facebook as this will ruin their relationship.
An eyebrow raiser of a statement I know… but amidst all the narcissism that reeks out of that last sentence, perhaps there might have been a point to his instructions that my friend so carelessly ignored. In the months that followed my friend’s discovery, she lived in an irrational fear of not being good enough for her boyfriend based on his ex-girlfriend’s pictures (nothing kinky by way of clarification just aesthetics we are dealing with here folks).
Armoured with her newly discovered inferiority complex, my friend ended the relationship to her boyfriend’s dismay. The guilt of dating whom she thought was above her station was too much to take in. This set precedent for many more break ups and make ups that followed over the course of the years. Even when they were back together, she was of the realisation that her boyfriend was an unscrupulous seducer; who was destined to run away with anything with a pulse that wasn’t her because to quote her “he was easy on the eye”. I couldn’t help but think in that moment that perhaps my friend could do with having a cataract operation thirty years too soon! But let’s not get into that now. That is a side note for anther blog post(s).
Facebook allows us to eliminate the weak from the absolute. The dating game is a cut-throat business. There are no leeway’s to be given. Survival of the fittest and what have you (who makes these rules anyways…). Some people love to air out their dirty (always unpressed, sometimes wet, occasionally clean) laundry on social networking sites for all and Sundry to see. Men in particular have a thing for still keeping incriminating evidence from their past. There is no sane reason as to why you would have less than decent snap shots of you and your ex still plastered on your Facebook wall when that relationship has dissolved; often captioned with soppy commentary. Is it an emblem of your acquisitions, hmm?
Word of advice for men; you might want to keep your Facebook on private so poor unsuspecting feeble women such as the antagonist of my side note don’t have to contend with the likes of your ex-girlfriends. Women are complex creatures, even if I say so myself. Actually on a second thought DON’T, I quite enjoy scouring your pages, all in the name of research of course.
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