Set Fire To The Rain

It hit me how much people rely on Facebook, myself included. I’m on Facebook on my way to school, right after class, while I feed a bottle to my son, before I go to bed, and when I wake up, completely groggy, at 3 am. Our obsession with Facebook is well, crazy. People open up more on social networking sites than in person. Some people open up a little too much, blowing up our news feed with obnoxious posts and pictures. Hence, earning their names of annoying Facebook people, or in my broaden research, the annoying Facebook girls. In a previous post, I had accepted the challenge of becoming an annoying Facebook girl for a week….and didn’t even last that. After 4 days of googling annoying statuses to post, taking numerous pictures of myself to get the perfect one, and leaving eye-rolling comments on people’s walls, I realized how skin deep it was to become an annoying Facebook girl. Not only was I updating my status every other hour to something annoying, I found the annoyance seeping into my real life, along with being short tempered, feistier than usual, more intolerable, and had no means of holding back any words that popped into my head.

From the friends I selected to give me feedback, I had only heard from five of them. I had asked them to explain how my posting made them feel, examples being angry, annoyed, entertaining, sorrow…etc., if they felt like unfriending me, or if they even paid attention to what I posted. Several of my friends told me I wasn’t annoying enough. Good lord, it was like pulling teeth already to post such unintelligent statuses and yet I wasn’t annoying enough? So I resorted to Google. I actually typed right into Google “annoying statuses” and found quite a bit. Some sites not only had annoying statuses to post but had suggestions on what makes an annoying status such as, complaining about life and/or stupid things, being vague, lyrics, and deliberately posting about someone but not using their name…I’m guilty of stealing that last one. In all, I had posted 13 status updates within 4 days, whew. Sadly, 3 to 4 statuses a day doesn’t even measure up to what an actual annoying Facebook girl would post daily.

Two of my friends had asked me if they could join in on the banter. My answer, “You sure can!”. Both would comment on my statuses and drove me to be more annoying. They also drew more attention to my statuses, perhaps because they became more amusing or people were actually intrigued what people had to say on my persistently annoying posts. With their help, I started to feel like a real annoying girl.

As I expected, I had friends who flat out told me I was annoying, but that is what I was going for. No one said I was annoying enough to delete but hated how I was blowing up their newsfeed. Then, I had friends that told me to keep them coming. They found my postings amusing, which I can relate to that because that is how I view annoying posts, as sheer entertainment. It is enjoyable to laugh at how much people crave attention and will post anything to get a few likes and comments.

Overall, this whole experience didn’t go as I had planned. I would have loved to have more input, especially from my male friends. I only had one male that participated while one of things I was researching was if men find these annoying Facebook girls more attractive. This one male did not, thank the lucky stars. I also wish I could have been more of the stereotypical annoying Facebook girl, it would have helped out this experiment even more. There were a handful of times where I would delete a status update or a photo for fear of what Facebook world would think of me. I just wish I was a tad bit more daring.

After this project, I’ve decided to take yet again another break from my Facebook. I have wasted so many hours of my time dedicating myself to the people of Facebook for what? What have I gained from these hours spent on a social networking site? Nothing. Sure, it is a great place to keep in touch with family and post pictures of my beautiful son for all to see but it has also turned me into someone who cares far too much. I have actually gotten a knot in my stomach from viewing a picture, became envious over a simple status update, sabotaged a potential relationship from reading wall posts, discovered a friend’s death through a tag, and learned the most about people through notes.

I’m going to all Gigi on my readers and ask what happened to the days of when “you had one phone number and one answering machine and that one answering machine has one cassette tape and that one cassette tape either had a message or it didn't.” We have slacked as a society by conforming to a social network. When we want to plan a party, we make an event on Facebook. When we want to announce that we are in a new relationship, engaged, pregnant, etc. everyone finds out from their newsfeed. I’ve been guilty of posting a question on a friend’s wall rather than actually calling her and speaking to her. How is it that we are more social on Facebook than in real life? It's because we are faulted.

Hopefully I will rediscover myself after my farewell to Facebook, it seemed to work the first time. I’m going to make it my goal to reconnect with friends through a phone call rather than on Facebook chat. The possibilities are endless of what I can do with the time that isn’t spent on social networking sites and for starters, I’m going to revamp my blog and blog again…I cannot get enough of pounding words out on a keyboard. So now I bid adieu to Facebook and my wonderful Facebook friends. Now remember, just because I virtually departed Facebook doesn’t mean I’m dead.

Dance, Dance, Dance

Dance is strenuous. It uses muscles you never fathomed you had. After a demanding stretch and floor exercise, an aching pain surfaced around my inside upper thigh. Whatever I did to stretch it did not work. After class I had asked my dance instructor what could be causing such discomfort and she responded it was my hip flexors. My newly found muscles began to work in my favor, allowing me to go deeper in my splits, leap with more stature in the air, and offer strict and poised legs for pirouettes.
My body would lean and bend in ways a straw could. “Larger, longer!” My instructor abruptly yelled at me as my feet met the wooden floor then just as quickly left. Thudding was not allowed. Dancers are poised for a reason and that is not to sound like a mad cow rampaging across the floor. When a dancer’s feet made a thud that was louder than the music, she would be told to re-do her leaps across the floor as everyone watched. I hated this training and conditioning. I just wanted to dance.
I was built for dance, my body petite and my muscles lean. My own instructor had once told me I had the perfect pointe toe point. Flexibility came fairly easy to me. Everyone would rave in jealously as we stretched our splits and I’d just shyly acknowledge their comments, “I wish I was that flexible”. It’s not all genetics, little did they know I suffered and conditions for several grueling hours to become like that, not just wishful thinking. I spent almost fifteen hours a week training at a gymnastics studio. My coach was coarse but had the biggest heart for every one of us. She pushed us to our brink to only better ourselves. She would deliberating take our front legs while in a side split and hoist it up on a wedge or some of us lucky ones who were more flexible had to prop our leg on the side of the trampoline. She’d shout, ‘Arms up!” and we’d be forced to sink even further into our split.
I loved gymnastics but I didn’t have the body for it. My arms couldn’t support my weight on back hand springs, kips on the uneven bars, and let’s not speak of the vault. That’s when I went back to dance. Dance allows me to express emotions in a way that is so majestic yet powerful. Dance is strenuous but I adore every damn minute of it.
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Sweet Disposition

As I ritually scour Facebook before bed, I come across things just make me question humanity. Enthralling as the virtual world has become, I don’t know whether to feel out of the loop or just more sane than the rest of my “friends”. Then, I began to panic, I am going about this wrong? Am I required to give a play-by-play of my day via statuses, post a picture of myself daily with some exceedingly unintelligent lyrics, write on every males’ wall, write inside jokes on female friend’s wall, write egoistic notes, and like everyone’s posting. Do people actually care or view it as sheer entertainment as I do? So, I have decided to accept the challenge of becoming the average, annoying Facebook girl. Just imagine the possibilities that may give way, such as land me a man, make better friends, become part of an inside joke, be invited to parties, or perhaps piss off people. As I ponder how many people would unfriend me or just roll their eyes in front of the bright computer screen, I developed a grand idea: after a week of being the annoying Facebook girl, the friends who hadn’t unfriended me yet, I would make a consultation of their feelings toward me throughout the duration. Ah, here it goes to being that person I hated. Will I be able to keep it up for a week? Probably not, eh we will see. If all else fails, I will do the opposite of those annoying Facebook fools. I will write on no one’s wall, like no one’s statues, post Lonely Island lyrics under all my pictures, write notes about World Peace, and dubious update statuses to keep people guessing what my day is like. Either way, I’ll smugly be mocking society.