<re I launch into a full-fledged rant about the thing I hate the most, I would like to submit a short preface. A disclaimer, if you will. I am aware of the different precautions I can take as a Facebook user to hide the people I do not want to know about. I know that I have the power to control what shows up on my newsfeed. Hell, I even have the power to completely get rid of someone from my legion of friends.
But even with all this power, this free will and ability to choose, I never do it. You want to know why? I’m far too invested in the web of drama and song lyrics that is your life. In fact, you entertain me.
And though there are surely the select few who read this and disagree – “This is really creepy.” – I can confidently assure you that the majority are probably nodding their heads in agreement, looking up only momentarily from their computer screen where a status is updating them on that girl from high school who now has two kids.
Even I have my limits, though, and I was pushed to my breaking point early last night. Right before starting an art history paper, I checked Facebook. You know what I call that? Prioritizing. Anyway, nothing out of the ordinary was happening,and I was more than ready to close out and get to work. Then something caught my eye. A status, about a paragraph in length, sat next to the tiny thumbnail version of one of my all time favorite Facebook characters.
Now of course I had to read it. I am an English major, after all, and it is my civil and scholarly duty to analyze the poetry of the common folk. This girl is notorious for posting something new about once an hour, usually about how every single day is the worst day of her life. Every class she is taking is the hardest class existing in college today. Though she is easily one of the wealthiest girls I have ever known, she complains about working and her apartment and other “issues” with being a pseudo-adult. And, unexpectedly, she talks incessantly about her boyfriend, whom she usually only refers to as “my best friend and love of my life.” It’s pretty awful. But at the same time, it’s the best.
Until she put up that status about Valentine’s Day. Everything was fine until she wrote this paragraph about her loathing of Valentine’s Day.
I’ve always been indifferent to the holiday, actually, but something in my brain clicked upon reading it; I wanted to sing odes to my boyfriend from the rooftops, bake heart shaped cookies, design individual glittery cards and compose poems for every person I have ever met. Her seemingly unjustified hatred for this holiday has made me love it.
She went on about consumerism and commercialization. She even described it as the most depressing day of the year. I mean, is it really? Really? Last Valentine’s Day I saw “Valentine’s Day” in theaters with my best friend. We weren’t depressed at all. The status pokes fun at guys who buy gifts for their girlfriends, overly affectionate couples and the overall ridiculous nature of this made-up holiday.
I considered typing her a well thought out message, one that points out her hypocrisies and the fact that she has a boyfriend. It was like she was throwing away an uneaten sandwich in front of a starving child. And after all this, I huffed around my room hating her for a good hour or so.
This Valentine’s Day is for the haters. You should try being happy – it’s not so bad.
