How to write a status in 10 ways

This blog was inspired by a number of things.
1. Mass holiday texts.
2. A million people getting married
3. A reconnection to Facebook after finals.

It has been brought to my attention recently that, after taking a step back from my southern sorority girl life, there are heavy trends in how said girls update their statuses on Facebook. These are a few of those trends, examples, and explanations of their affectiveness.

1. Anything ending in, "Um...what!?"

Example: "I just saw a guy WALKING through the drive-thru. Um...what?!"

Explanation: This describes your outrage in a slightly humorous way. You can talk about something small that happened in your day but twist it to make it sound like it was the most insane moment of your life. It also shows your disgust over something trivial that you would probably do on any other given day.


2. Something about how magnificently wonderful your brand new hubby is.

Example: "I am so thankful for my family, friends and the best husband in the world, John Smith, this Christmas!!! <3 :)"
(Disclaimer - if you don't tag him in your status on this one it means you don't love him. It needs to show up on his page too so that people know your love is real.)

Explanation: This reminds all of your thousand Facebook friend that you are married and excited about it - in case they forgot after you posted your engagement as a status, your relationship status change from in a relationship to engaged, a picture of the ring and the story of how he did it, all three albums of your engagement pictures, a countdown until your wedding day, your name change, your relationship status change from engaged to married, all sixteen of your wedding picture albums, and weekly pictures of flowers and notes that your new hubs leaves for you.


3. Anything on monumental days, no matter how non-monumental they are.

Example 1: "It's 11/11/11!"
Example 2: "Merry Xmas!"
Example 3 (referring back to #2): "Happy six week anniversary to my fantastic husband and best friend, John Smith! Can't wait to spend the rest of forever with you!"

Explanation: This either reminds people that you know what day it is, makes you feel like a good person for spreading well wishes, or once again reminds people that you are married.


4. Something about how lame your hometown is.

Example: "There is nothing to do in Johns Creek. Going to Forsyth to Steak 'N Shake. Hit me up."

Explanation: You are soooooo over your high school town and need to remind people that it was SO four years ago. Don't be surprised when your hometown is exactly as you left it after high school. But make sure to tell everyone that you're grown and mature and on your own now...except for the three weeks you come home to mooch of your parents over the holidays.


5. Mini-letters to non-human entities.

Example: "Dear snow, Did you really have to start falling right before my four hour drive home? Not cool. Sincerely, Stacy"

Explanation: You think you're being clever, but you're really showing signs of pen pal-inspired insanity.


6. Your daily/weekly/monthly goals.

Example: "This week I'm going to make myself go for a run if it kills me, and make sure I do my laundry before the weekend!"

Explanation: Your intention is to put your goals in writing so that (A) people can see how busy you are that you barely have time for menial tasks like laundry or (B) you will actually follow through with them since they're now public. You probably won't follow through and no one actually cares...like at all. So this one needs to stop.


7. Song lyric and/or movie quote.

Example 1: "'Santa! I know him!'"

Explanation 1: You love the movie Elf and, like every other day in December, it happens to be on TV. You think you may be somewhat tricking people because you didn't put what movie the quote is from, and wonder how many people will "like" your status...a sign that they get the secret joke. In fact, most of the time, the quote is extremely common and everyone gets it.

Example 2: "Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead."

Explanation 2: You have feelings, and Adele is the only one who understands.


8. Something...ANYTHING...about your religious beliefs.

Example 1: "God has blessed me with so many wonderful people in my life! I love all of you!"
Example 2: "Ezeiel 23:19 <3"
Example 3: "Happy birthday, Jesus! You are my Redeemer and Savior and Lord and such."

Explanation A: You love your religion times a billion and feel like everyone needs to hear about it because it makes you so happy and you're convinced it'll make others happy too.
Explanation B: You want people to believe you posted it because of Explanation A.


9. And subsequently something about your alcohol consumption.

Example (subtle): "Moving a little slow today."
Example (not-so-subtle): "Shit...where's my debit card? And where am I? Someone wanna pick me up?"

Explanation: You like to remind people that you're a lot of fun and like to have a good time. My lack of excessive alcohol consumption leaves me a bit baffled on this one, but my guess is that you're still enamored by your 19-year-old days of taboo inebriation or that you're still too drunk to realize that posting in the public domain about being blatto is a bad idea in general.


10. Tangible figures of time or effort.

Example 1: "12 pages down...3 to go! I WILL finish this paper tonight!"
Example 2: "About to start the 11 hour car ride home!" or "After 15 hours I finally landed in Japan!"

Explanation: Providing the facts and figures helps your fellow sorostitutes sympathize with and/or understand the extent to which you have to drive/write/fly/etc. It's challenging to express in words how hard your life can be sometimes, but numbers are a good way to provide detail.


Extra credit for any emoticons, exclamation marks, hearts, cutesy sign-offs, or inside jokes that 99.9% of your friends don't understand.



And in closing, after 42 minutes of writing, I'd like to say I love God (Mark 14:51-52), my (future) husband<3, shots of Mr. Boston (um...WHAT?!), but not Johns Creek cause it's sooooo lammmmeeeee. "Oh come let us adore Him!" MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! XOXOXOXO

Love, Cindeer

Be my boyfriend? Check yes or no

Facebook made a bold move when they decided to include "relationship status" in the standard user's profile.

While the "relationship status" isn't usually as controversial as the "religious views" or "political views," it can be just as annoyingly underhanded and hard to keep track of.

I've boiled down the most common options when facing the relationship status question. Make sure to throw yourself completely into the part or else you'll confuse all of your somewhat friends. Here are the choices:

1.Nothing. You're mysterious. Or so you think. Either you don't feel like having the people who've stalked you since high school meddling in your beezwax or you don't know what you are. You might be hiding a somewhat controversial relationship or you may just be too cool for Facebook, in which case you say you have better things to do than update your profile. Which we all know is a lie. You check Facebook everyday and purposefully don't update things so people will believe that you really are too mature for Facebook. Give it up, it's a generational addiction and you aren't foolin' anybody.

2. "Single." Make sure to put up statuses about how much you love your "girlies" and how you can't wait to sip merlot Thursday night at the Winery. You might be desperate, or you might just be proud that you're a strong woman who doesn't need a man. You go, girl.

3. "Married" or "Engaged" to your BFF. You've probably had this up for years and refuse to take it down because you're stubborn and/or still think it's cute to joke about being lesbian lovers. It's sort of like Number 1 but you get the satisfaction of confusing people for a split second.

4. On again, off again. Now this is why the News Feed was invented. Because every time the two of you break up or get back together, I get to read about it on my homepage. And then I get to breathe a sigh of relief that I'm not you. Now I'm sure the two of you love each other very much and just can't stand to be apart, but how you share it with the cyber world is borderline embarrassing. You should read about Number 1. Or even resort to Number 3. Cause Number 4 shouldn't be an option. Unless you do it for your stalkers' enjoyment. In that case, I'm enjoying it and by all means, continue.

5. "It's Complicated." Not to be confused with Number 4. If you are a Number 4, your relationship is probably complicated, but it takes a certain breed to admit that you have no idea where you stand in terms of significant other. The Number 5 has thrown his or her hands in the air and just plain given up. Your crazy somewhat-significant has said something like, "I don't want to ruin our great friendship," or "I just think we don't need a label right now." At which point you should say back, "You're crazy. Make up your damn mind." But usually you're too much of a limp noodle to say that.

6. The "I have a new boyfriend and I LOVE HIM!!!" Not only do you put that you're "In a relationship" the day you decide to call if official, but you sit together at his laptop and change your relationship statuses and profile pictures simultaneously. You giggle about how perfect you are for each other and update your status with how excited you are about your date this weekend or how PERRRRRRFECT your new man is. He then "likes" your status and comments something nauseating like "I love you so much baby" for all the world to see. Congrats, newly coupled, but get a room.

7. The "We're super proud of how long we've been together" couple. You do things like use Picnik to edit lovey-dovey pictures of the two of you kissing, usually in sepia with high contrast. Your status updates everyone on how many years/months/days you've been together and how wonderful it is to have someone to bring you chicken noodle soup and watch the Notebook with you when you're sick. If you're a guy, you probably haven't gotten any in way too long and your girlfriend makes you put up a picture of the two of you as your default. Facebook has now made the Number 7s happier by making it possible to put up your anniversary under your relationship status. Joy.


Now what if things just don't work out and the relationship ends? Have no fear. There are more options.

The somewhat sane people out there are...
1. Just sad. You wait a few days and then take down the relationship status anyway. Unfortunately, Facebook still tells everyone that you are "no longer listed as in a relationship with" him. You let word spread about the breakup and pretend to ignore the wall posts saying, "What happened?" or "????" That's just unfortunate.

More fun, though, are those of you who are...
2. Bitter. You change your relationship status to "single" that night and continue to update your status with quotes from Christina Aguilera songs about being better than him anyway.

3. Not to be confused with the "I'm already over you." For the few weeks after the breakup you make sure to take pictures with ALL of your guy friends, possibly in compromising positions or kissing them on the cheek. All of these pictures are put up under an album named something like "Best Summer of my Life!!!" or "FREEDOM" which you know your ex will look through. Mainly because you stalk him like a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat.

For both 2 and 3, you now have free time to kill that was previously spent with your significant other. You have time, energy and reason to become a Facebook queen and you let the world know that you are having like SOOOO MUCH FUNNN being single!!!

A defense mechanism? Maybe. But I bet it feels so good.

Diamonds are a Facebook stalker's best friend

To stalk or not to stalk.

Never really a question.

After an old friend of mine got engaged when I didn't even know she was dating anyone, I realized I need to pick up my Facebook stalking. Actually, I stalk this girl a lot. She was a sneaky one.

But it got me to thinking.

Everyone Facebook stalks.

It has always been my personal custom to stalk people my age with babies or diamond rings. But then I realized, it's not just me. Doesn't everyone like to look at cheesy, lovey pictures of the newly engaged or the flip book photo album of your expanding belly?

If you have a baby, you know people are stalking you. You post the sonograms as your status and pretend your engagement fell before the conception. It's ok, times they are a changin.

Also, if you're still chasing your BA and recently engaged, people are definitely stalking you. You put up pictures of the ring and people judge. "Judge?!" you say, but you know they are. You think your ring is the best ring ever so you take pictures of it on the macro setting and tag it as yourself and the man of your premature engagement dreams. Everyone else looks at it and thinks what they'd change to make it their perfect ring.

The thing is, you're happy. Which is great. More power to you. I wish you the best new mom/wifey. I am no where close to ready for any of that serious adult stuff. But I will continue to stalk you.

Nooooo thank you.

Through a series of awkward events I decided to put "in a relationship" up on Facebook.

Now all the ads on the right column are for unplanned pregnancy and engagement rings.

As if I didn't have enough anxiety in my life.

Hades

So in a fit of joy I decided to Facebook stalk Sarah. Haven't talked to her in like ten years but I figured she hadn't changed much (cause I'm very similar to my 10 year old self? It wasn't great reasoning...give me a break).

Anyway.

TURNS OUT her religious views on Facebook are " The Lord has done great things for us, and we are filled with JOY" and under her interests are "seeing the divine in creation" and a number of church activities. Then she has a poem about how awesome Jesus is.

This can go one of two ways:

First, I could get into how people often go to church and enjoy calling themselves Christians when in fact they're just trying to fake people out so they don't see that indeed these same "Christians" are mean, chair-pulling-out bullies.

Second, I could accept that people may change over the course of 10 years and that I'm going to hell.