I thought I'd start a series. Not for any particularly clever or interesting reason; I just think I should. And I'm calling this series Pet Peeves. If you can't work out what this series could possibly be about, you might just be featured in it. Keep your eyes peeled.
I think I should stress before I begin that these are, as the title suggests, pet peeves, rather than actual keeping-me-up-all-night concerns. I recognise that there are far greater and more worrying issues in the world beyond what I am about to moan about, so don't go complaining about my petty complaints.
Pet Peeve #1: Facebook
Or rather, not Facebook, but people on Facebook. Constant status-updating and 'liking' every status that falls within a Facebooker's line of vision is irritating enough, but let's face it: this is what happens on Facebook, and you know this when you sign up (or, at least, you find out very quickly upon signing up). If you don't want to hear about what the kid you used to sit next to in Science ate for lunch, don't accept the kid you used to sit next to in Science's friend request. Or don't join Facebook. Or comment on their status telling them to shut the hell up. Any of the above will do. If a person on Facebook feels it is important that they share with every last acquaintance of theirs the contents of their sandwich, cool. Go for it. But I can not excuse the following Facebook faux pas:
1. Airing your dirty laundry in public. Telling everyone you've ever known (or walked past) what you ate for lunch is kinda sad, but surrendering to them the intimate details of your personal life is embarrassing. For everyone. Your best friend and your mum might want to know when your boyfriend has cheated on you, but your next-door-neighbour's teacher's hairdresser's aunt doesn't really give a shite. She just thinks to herself, "Whoa, calm it, fruitcake." Don't get me wrong: I understand that you feel the need to vent your frustrations, which is why I believe someone (not me, however) should set up a site called Fake Facebook. It looks exactly the same as the normal Facebook, except when someone posts a status along the lines of, "i jst found ma bf in bed wiv a goat he aint gnn@ hve no ballz left wen i iz fini$hd wiv hm!!!!", Fake Facebook automatically detects "angry" mood, and comments on the status with a heart-felt response along the lines of, "He's not worth it, babe! You're so much better than him anyway!" Angry Facebooker feels consoled, every human they've ever encountered doesn't have to hear about it, and they can resume their life the following day, without everyone looking at them with the following thought bubble emanating from their heads: "What a loon."
2. Snogging pictures. No one wants to see you with your tongue down someone else's throat. I don't care how in love the two of you may be: some people eat at their computer; we don't want to be watching tonsil tennis as we eat.
3. Farmville. And even worse, people who spend money on Farmville. Why the hell? If you love farms so much, go be a farmer.
4. Random friend requests. I don't think it's a coincidence that these random friend requests come from either a) women with impossible bra-sizes, or b) sweaty middle-aged fat men taking pictures of themselves from their webcams. The only difference between the two perpetrators is that at least the latter has the courage to admit who they actually are; God only knows how sweaty, fat and old the former of the two perpetrators has to be for them to feel the need to hide behind the guise of some random page 3 model they found on some seedy website somewhere. I don't get their intent, though. Do they think that just because they happen to say hello, or because they happen to have boobs bigger than two sleeping hippopotamuses, that I'm going to invite them into my own little private world? Honestly.
5. Liking everything under the sun. Go ahead and like your favourite band, actor or football team; that's what the like button is there for. But think twice before you like "Dropping my phone on my face when I'm texting." I mean, really. Do you really like that? Do you drop your phone on your face and think to yourself, "That was really nice. I really liked that." I didn't think so.
6. Excessive notifications. Notifications are useful: they let you know when a friend of yours has something to say to you. Without notifications, Facebook would be somewhat like millions of people banging on sound-proof windows trying to get someone's attention, and no one else hearing. Excessive notifications, on the other hand, are downright irritating. Your friend tags you in a picture of a chair (I don't know why; maybe your friend thinks you look like a chair), and you think to yourself, "Hmm, that's odd", but don't really give it much thought beyond that, and forget about it. Two weeks later, you log into Facebook and find you have 31 notifications. Apparently, 31 people you have never met before have commented on a picture of you. You freak, think that someone, somehow, has uploaded a picture of you naked or on the pan (what else would legitimately invite 31 notifications, someone please tell me), and click on any one of the 31 notifications, eager to check out the damage. There is, however, no damage. It just so happened that the first person to comment on the picture of you as a chair said something "Yo mama"-ish, thus inviting an argument that entailed a further 30 comments.
7. Relationship statuses. OK, it's not so much the relationship status as it is the attention that relationship statuses attract. If you're in a solid relationship and lots of people know about it, cool beans. What gets to me is when people 'like' it when someone they vaguely know goes from being 'single' to 'in a relationship'. Why should we all like this? They could be in a relationship with a woman-beater, or someone with really bad breath. Don't like the change in relationship status until you have assessed the relationship itself (in as non-creepy a way as you can; I don't endorse curtain-twitching and eavesdropping). Likewise, what is it with girls 'marrying' their best friend? I'm sure it was funny the first 100 times, but now it's getting so old that I'm gonna start assuming it's true and that your friendships know no bounds.
8. Pokes. I'm sorry, but it sounds dirty. I don't poke just anyone, and I don't want anyone to poke me unless they truly mean it.
9. Political apathy. If you don't know where you stand politically, leave it blank. Don't tell me politics is boring just because you don't understand it.
10. HAPPY BIRTHDAY! It's nice when people wish you a happy birthday. (I was once wished a happy birthday by Cesc Fabregas. Have some of that.) It's nice to wish other people a happy birthday. But I have no idea where to draw the line. It seems rude to wish someone you haven't seen in 5 years a happy birthday but then not wish a happy birthday to your best friend, even though you're sitting in the very same room as them and that would be weird.
But then again, everything about Facebook is weird, isn't it? It's this weird virtual world full of drama and marital frivolity, of 'liking' things you wouldn't ordinarily like in the real world, of exposing more about yourself than you ever would have thought you were capable of exposing, and where everyone appears to have taken up farming as a hobby...
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