Anything at ALL Having to do With Facebook.

It's the middle of the night and I should be sleeping. Instead, I'm alternating between sobbing and gritting my teeth. Pregnancy hormones? A bit. Facebook-induced? Absolutely.

I heard a term last week that stuck with me: Internet Assassin. Someone who hides behind the anonymity or safety of physical distance to wreak havoc on the internet. I'm no celebrity, so Perez Hilton hasn't attacked me. My outfits aren't mocked by millions mere moments after I wear them. But I am a member of a little social-networking site known as Facebook. I used to love it. I'm pretty nosey, so the photos, status updates, comments, etc. gave me lots of entertainment. I've been able to keep up with high school friends in a way generations before us never could. Congratulations and happy birthdays abound. Also, being a stay-at-home mom and having a schedule that keeps us too busy for friends, it was a wonderful connection to the outside world.

Until.

It all started with the hormones. Status updates and mobile uploads no longer brought me the same pleasure. Okay, so you've posted a photo of meat on the grill. Congratulations, cave men have been doing that for centuries. You're sick. AGAIN. (You know you have those friends.) Your dog doesn't have worms. Well, I have human children to be concerned with. I would read these things and the annoyed comments just bounced around in my head. Tonight, after receiving yet another message that made me fume, I figured it all out: We as humans have spent so much time, alone, on Facebook that we have forgotten that we are not the only person alive. The world does not revolve around us. Facebook was not created so that the digital world may marvel at our feet alone. Being alone with a computer or smartphone makes us forget social etiquette.

In the three days, I have received two messages that got under my skin. Private messages. The kind that have little to no accountability. Where you can just spout off how YOU feel without any regard to the person reading it. Okay, you got your feelings hurt - say something. If I didn't like you, you wouldn't be my friend on Facebook. This is not junior high. I, like just about everyone else, am a VERY busy person, with more on my plate than I can possibly hope to handle. I just don't have the capacity to feel bad that you got your feelings hurt over something that you WILDLY misinterpreted and took ENTIRELY too personal, when it had nothing to do with you to begin with. I realize that this situation is specific to me, only, but like I said, it's the middle of the night and I'm worked up. I especially don't have time for you if you can't even send me the message yourself. The fact is this: I'm busy. My life is crazy. Maybe before you send a message like that, stop and think of the receiver's perspective. The fact that they have stuff to do, stuff to worry about, stuff going on in their own lives, and they probably DIDN'T seek out ways to offend you. When did private messages go from "Yay, I have a notification!" to "I'm going to say whatever I want, hit send, and never have to deal with it"? What happened to human interaction? When did we get so high and mighty that we think every single status update applies to us?
Don't even get me started on people commenting on statuses that have nothing to do with them... If you are not a parent, don't respond to status updates requesting parenting advice.
If more than half of your Mobile Uploads album consists of you in a mirror, put some clothes on, LEAVE THE HOUSE, and make some friends with flesh that will encourage you, so that you're not looking for it in photo comments.
If you repost a status update about the number of Saturdays in a year, it will not make you any richer. It will only clog my feed.
If roughly a third of your status updates are about you being sick, and not something chronic, but multiple, differing complaints... just unfriend me, please.
There's nothing that hasn't already been said about the 'villes and worlds.

Status updates are so selfish most of the time. If we have a platform to really CONNECT with the people in our lives, let's not turn it into a 7th grade cafeteria. Let's do something useful with it.