This is the one about sending meta messages.

I’ve written before about my love for the streaming music service Spotify.  Well I’ve just found another reason to love it; you can send songs to your Facebook friends, and I’ve sent meta messages to my Facebook acquaintances.  Well some of the messages are pretty obvious, I guess.  Perhaps this is funnier to me than it is to anyone else, but here’s what I’ve sent so far:

• Coldplay’s Fix You to the gay Mormon kid that just got married to a woman even though he’s told me he’s gay
• Gershwin’s I Got Rhythm to the girl who was on our high school’s color guard team and was void of rhythm
• Dolly Parton’s Jolene to the guy that stole my girlfriend from me in high school
• Fugees Killing Me Softly With His Song to the guy I used to work with that thought he was a good singer but isn’t
• Guns N’ Roses Welcome To The Jungle to a friend living in Newport Beach because I just found out that my favorite restaurantPita Jungle is opening up a location in Newp.
• Reba McEntire’s The Greatest Man I Never Knew to a blog buddy that I’ve had a virtual friendship with for a few years but have never met in person
• Rihanna’s S&M to a friend that has told me she has only had missionary sex
• Whitney Houston’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody to a bunch of people I’d like to dance with
• Little Jackie’s Love Will Find Me to my internet crush that lives 500 miles away
• Mika’s Happy Ending to my friend studying to be a (legitimate) massage therapist
• Peter Bjorn and John’s Young Folks to my oldest Facebook friend
• Plain White T’s Hey There Delilah to my friend Delilah
• Sisqo’s The Thong Song to an old co-worker that never wore sneakers, only flip-flops (thongs)
• Trey Songz’ Bottoms Up to my ex-boyfriend…long story
• Willow’s Whip My Hair to my completely bald friend

I seriously love sending these.  If you’re a Facebook friend, you might be getting a delivery soon.

This is the one where I’m no longer single.

I’m an Internet oversharer.  I know that. (I’ve had 1 bowel movement today.)

Sometimes I find myself thinking of how I’m going to blog or tweet about an enjoyable situation instead of actually enjoying said situation.  It’s a bit pathetic.  But that’s what makes me who I am, I guess.

Because of a few situations that have happened recently, I’ve been thinking about dating and the scary Facebook relationship status problem.

When I went through a breakup in April 2010 I wrote this post about how breaking up is even harder to do in the days of Facebook.

Really, Facebook hurts a playa’s game in 2 ways (take it from me).

The first problem is that freaking BROADCAST TO THE WORLD THAT YOU ARE NO LONGER SINGLE thing.  You immediately get “likes” and people congratulating you.  But this Broadcast from one half of a relationship puts an immediate spotlight on the other.

My last boyfriend changed his relationship status a bit sooner that I wanted to.

Gulp.

So now there’s this awkward moment – a moment where my inaction speaks louder than any action would.  A moment where all eyes are on me and you have to quickly run through the scenarios.  I could change.  I could not change.  I could lose all of this, or get sucked deeper into all of this because of some stupid tic box.

I know that this “problem” could have be solved by having my relationship status turned to “private,” which it is now (I’ll explain why in a minute).  But at the time I was living my why-do-it-if-it-can’t-be-exploited-on-my-social-networks philosophy.

The second problem that arises has to do with your former lovers.  Of course when you are dating someone you become their Facebook friend, right?  Of course.  Of course.

But what happens when you split?  To un-friend or not to un-friend?

I mean really, I don’t want to see photos of his new haircut or to hear the stories of how he corrected the grammar of a woman working at Wal-Mart and somehow now feels superior.  Those stories and pictures didn’t interest me when we were sleeping together, why would they now?  So I might as well get rid of them, right?

Wait, wait. Wait just a minute.  Wait.  This is another instance where both your actions and in-actions speak.  If you quickly de-friend, you’re the hurt ex that wants nothing further to do with him.  If you let him sit in your friend list, you’re the mature ex that is moving on but isn’t bitter.

Am I over-thinking this?

For the record, I never de-friend.  Ex-boyfriends, former political buddies from Orange County that only use Facebook to beg me to give money, drag queens I met at a bar once…they’re all on my friend list and they will continue to be (unless I’m removed on their end).  I prefer just to hide their updates from my feed and then they are out of sight.

In a slightly related note, I changed my relationship status yesterday to this:

You get the joke, right?  Mike went from being “single” to “in a relationship” and then my 1st comment is “with Big Brother Season 13.”

Well I started getting messages from people who want to know “who the lucky guy is” or “I didn’t know you were dating someone.”  And I’m not sure if all the people who “like” this status actually read the first comment that I wrote explaining it.

Ugh.

So now I put my relationship status on lock-down because in September when this relationship ends (he’s totally going to just drop off the face of the earth….watch) I will have to change this status and I don’t need it broadcast everywhere.  And I certainly don’t need condolences.

This is the one about refusing to finish.

Despite the graphic topic of this post, I’m going to attempt to write it in the most PG-13 way possible.

I was 18 when I had my first serious relationship with a man…well, boy.  We were both boys.  Additionally, we were both young and incredibly naïve.

I’m friends with First Boyfriend (who will now be called 1stbf) on Facebook.  And last week 1stbf wrote on his Facebook wall that he thought that he felt a cold coming on.  And I suddenly had a flashback of the two of us on a boat in a harbor in Long Beach making out (that’s a long story).  Things were headed in one direction…get me?  And he suddenly stopped me.  “I can’t finish,” he told me (maybe using another word for “finish” but remember I’m trying to be PG-13).  “I think I’m about to get a cold…and if I finish, it will weaken my immune system.”

That’s when I crossed my arms and gave him my best Daria look (see image to the left).  “Are you being serious right now?”

He told me that when he feels illness coming on he never finishes.  Even when he’s alone.

WTF, right?

I was 18…so I had this strange definition of “sex” that required both parties to finish.  If only one person finished, it wasn’t “sex” but rather some kinky thing that only happened at swingers parties.

This “I don’t finish when I feel illness coming on” thing made for a particularly difficult flu season.  And I promptly broke up with him before the fall cold season started.

Last week when I read his “starting to feel sick” Facebook status, I messaged him.  Here’s what I had to say:

What’s up 1stbf?!  Your status reminded me of this random memory:  when we were dating (over 10 years ago!!!!!) you refused to finish if you felt like you were getting sick. Hahahahhaha….do you remember that? You said it would bring the sickness on quicker. Do you still feel that way?

He responded shortly after:

HAHAHA WHAT??? That’s hilarious! I don’t even remember that nor do I remember ever feeling that way! Gosh, we were so young. I can’t believe it’s been about 12 years now!!! Speaking of random memories, do you remember when we used to make out on that boat in Long Beach?

I’m glad that he acknowledged his naiveté and he has gotten over this ridiculous belief; I’m sure his current boyfriend is glad too.

Maybe later I’ll tell you the story about the boat.  Haha.

This is the one about the ‘Importance of Being Slutty.’

I’m sure you think this same thought all the time: I really wish Oscar Wilde was still alive.

Right?

I recently had a Facebook conversation that was totally worthy of an Oscar Wilde play.  But since it was on Facebook, I guess it couldn’t have actually been Wilde…you know, since he’s been dead for over 100 years.

Here you go, the dramatic re-enactment (some names have been changed to protect the innocent):

JEFF: Someone is trying to set me up with someone you know.  Richard. I need details.

MIKE: I dated him. He’s super cute and wonderful. I can’t say anything bad about him. But I think maybe he’s dating his ex again….Richard. If he’s not dating him, they are close…and that’s the only issue I’d look out for.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I said he is dating his ex "Richard" I meant to say "Daniel."  This is an inciting incident that causes mass confusion later on.]

JEFF: His name’s Mike. That’s the guy setting us up.

MIKE: Hahaha. Oh wait. So RICHARD is trying to set you up with someone? (TELL HIM ALL THE NICE THINGS I SAID ABOUT HIM, BTW). What is Mike’s last name??

JEFF: No… Mike is the ex. He’s setting me up with Richard.  Mike P***.

MIKE: I really think Richard is dating Daniel F. Oh god this is confusing. If not, Richard is a good guy and worth a date. What an incestuous gay world.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: When I first met Jeff we were both young and he taught me many things.  Things like how to order a pizza online, how to convince online men to move from Ohio to live with you, and we may have hooked up.]

JEFF: Ok, so let me get this straight. Richard dated Richard, Mike, Mike, and now Daniel . Years ago Jeff hooked up with Mike, and now be has a crush on Mike. Richard is still hung up on Richard, according to Mike. Mike thinks Daniel is no good for Richard, and is setting him up with Jeff. Sound right?

MIKE: Fucking gays.  Richard dated Daniel YEARS ago (like before I met you I met Richard and Daniel as a couple).

Richard is besties with Mike Lawson’s friend from Boys & Girls Club and reconnected. And dated Richard briefly. Good guy, but I was itching to move to Phoenix.

Jeff hooked up with Mike P***. Jeff is crushing on Mike P***.

Wait, there are two Richards?

JEFF: No, Jeff hooked up with Mike L, and is crushing on Mike P***, who is crushing on Mario. And I thought you said there were two Richards? I know there are two Mikes.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: I like how Jeff had to remind me that we hooked up. In my defense, it was about 10 years ago]

MIKE: Mario?

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: If this were really a comedy farce, the role of Mario would be played by some bit actor that would also play the butler. At one point, it would be required for both actors to be on stage, and hilarity would ensue.]

MIKE: Okay….let me map what I think is happening. Richard dated Daniel YEARS ago (like before I met you I met Richard and Daniel as a couple).

Richard is besties with Mike Lawson’s friend from Boys & Girls Club and reconnected. And dated Richard briefly. Good guy, but I was itching to move to Phoenix.

Jeff hooked up with Mike L. Jeff is crushing on Mike P***.

Mike P***. is crushing on Mario.

So Mike P***. wants to set up Jeff with Richard. But Mike L. is pretty certain that Richard is back with Daniel. But if Daniel isn’t in the picture, he suggests that Jeff do it with Richard because he’s awesome. Mike L. only cautions Jeff that MAYBE Richard is still kicking it with Daniel and that could become an issue but Mike L. doesn’t know for certain.

JEFF: So Richard is definitely dating someone right now, but Mike P***. doesn’t like the guy (and it sounds like Richard isn’t that happy either) so Jeff is being set-up as a “friend” with hopes that Richard will dump BF with Undetermined Name. Everyone but BFwUN is aware of this but we’re supposed to pretend we don’t know.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: 10 minute intermission]

JEFF: Confirmation, BFwUN is Daniel.

[AUTHOR'S NOTE: We're still working on the third act]

Seriously, does this kind of conversation happen to straight people?

This is the one where I didn’t say, ‘hi.’

The other night I was out and I came across a guy that looked really familiar.  I said hello…and he said hello.  And that was that.  I didn’t see any signs on his face that he maybe knew me or anything. So I let it pass.

A few seconds later it dawned on me where I knew the guy from.  But it was way too embarrassing to say, “You’re Ramona’s brother! I used to work with her a few years ago…and since I quit I’ve never talked to her, but we are Facebook friends and I clicked into your profile from hers because I assumed she had a hot brother.”

Instead I just said nothing.

This is the one where she likes two very different things.

This just showed up in my Facebook feed:

I think if you asked me “who is the exact opposite of Maya Angelou” I might just say, “Nicki Minaj.”  Right?

This is the one where I get inked.

I’ve written before about the idea of getting tattooed, see some of my past stuff here and here and here.

Before getting a tattoo I have to complete the following process:

1. Come up with a design. Nothing iffy. It has to be on paper (or in a Photoshop file). The thought, “I want a Chinese character” or “I’d like something that reminds me of my kids,” isn’t specific enough.
2. You have two weeks to improve it. This design is going to be on you forever. In the next two weeks make changes to it. Re-design it. Use a different font. Perfect it.
3. Hibernate it. Put it away, but don’t forget about it. You need to sit on the design for one year. If you still want to put this design on your body 365 days after you originally came up with it, do it.

So, I’ve toyed with different ideas for tattoos.  I’m thinking that I want some text down my ribs.  I tend to write pretty deep shit in my Facebook statuses, so I turned to the FB to see if there was anything worth permanently etching into my skin:

* What you see is what you get, and you ain’t seen nothing yet. [Updated on January 15th, 2011] It’s a clever Lauryn Hill quotation, but why would it belong on my body.

* Take your mutha fuckin’ shirt off. [Updated on January 8th] It’s a less-than-clever T-Pain lyric that I facebooked when the song came on it a bar. It would be funny because to see the tatoo my shirt would need to be removed.

* May the fierce be with you! [Updated on December 31, 2010] Quoting RuPaul on New Years Eve! Do I seriously only update with song lyrics??!

* To whom much is given, much is required [Updated on December 23, 2010] An atheist quoting the bible, WTF?! It’s still fucking true.

* Love. [Updated on December 21st, 2010] Simple. The punctuation adds to the idea.

* I’m marvelous, so marvelous. I’m marvelous. [Updated December 20, 2010] Another song quote.

* …fulfilling our foray [Updated on July 28, 2010] A Walt Whitman quotation.

* Doubt what they say, believe what they do. [May 20th, 2010]

Thinking about it, maybe FACEBOOK isn’t the best place for tattoo inspiration.

This is the one about farts.

Last night I was at a bar and I used the pisser about 20 times…and on one of my many trips to the urinal a guy next to me farted and like a 3rd grade boy, I couldn’t control my laughter.  Luckily the guy had a sense of humor and said, “did you hear something?”

And then this morning my Facebook status was: Am I the only one that struggles to suppress laughter when the guy at the urinal next to me farts?

And then my old roommate/yoga partner/common law wife Cindy responded Just like when farting occurs in yoga! Which is totally a story I should share with my blog buddies!

Okay about 6 years ago I used to do yoga pretty regularly.  And I used to go to yoga with my old roommate/yoga partner/common law wife Cindy.  We throw our mats down close to one another and enjoy  a good hour of stretching, breathing and relaxing.  If you haven’t ever taken a yoga class you need to try at least once before you declare it isn’t for you.

Well anyway during one session we were doing the camel pose (see photo) and the back stretch felt so good, and I was completely focused on my breathing.  With each inhale I expanded my lungs and on each exhale I dropped just a bit further into the stretch.

My entire mind and body was all about breathing and focusing.  And somehow on one of my exhales I let a fart out.

Not a little fart.  Like a full on cheek slapping fart.

And then I totally lost it.  I dropped out of the pose and laughed.  Not only could I keep from controlling my flatulence, but the fart triggered a deep uncontrollable belly laugh.  My fart and laugh made Cindy laugh.  And the concentration and centering usually gained in a yoga class was completely lost.

Needless to say, the people around us weren’t exactly pleased with us.  I had the giggles for the next ten or fifteen minutes and ended up leaving the class when we transitioned to corpse pose and everyone closed their eyes.  I wanted to get out of there before they turned the lights on.

So the lesson of this story: farts make Mike laugh.

This is the one about pictures.

PICTURES!!

I wanted to write a blog post about photos.  I’ve been snapping a lot of them in the recent past, and I haven’t been blogging them here because there are too many other places around the web to post.

I’ve posted a few photographs to my Facebook from last weekend, and I’ve also created an album there called “I ATE THIS” and it’s just photos of crap I’ve eaten.

The second Photo related thing that I wanted to post about was my DailyBooth.com account.

Do you Daily Booth?  If so, follow me and I’ll follow you back. To see today’s Daily Booth photo, look on the left hand side of this page.

Some of my Daily Booths are just stupid head shots in the car.  Others are me with other people.  And some are me sitting on the toilet (just kidding…well, ONE is me sitting on the pot).

The gist of Daily Booth is this: each day you photograph yourself and people can comment or respond.  It’s a lot like Twitter but you use photographs instead of words.

And lastly, I wanted to say that I’m always photographing stupid shit and posting it on Twitter…like this Greeting Card Fail. You have no reason NOT to be following me on Twitter.

This is the one with a social media purge.

Over dinner on Friday night I had a thirty-minute conversation about social media “friends” and purging your contacts from time to time.  It was a super-nerdy conversation and I’m embarrassed to admit that during the conversation I thought to myself, “I’m totally going to blog about this.”

Drew says that every few months he clicks through his Facebook friends and deletes people.  His general rule is this: If I saw them on the street and would just walk past them, then I delete them from Facebook page.

My question was simple: why?

I have 335 friends on Facebook…I would guess that over half of those people I would totally stop and talk to if I saw them on the street.  The other chunk of people are randoms I met once or twice, or people who read this blog.

I can’t see any real disadvantage to keeping those acquaintances on my friends list.  Maybe my feed could get bogged down with where some random contact is eating and another contact doing shout-outs…but on Facebook you can just remove those people from your feed.

Facebook, unlike Twitter, is a forced two-way street.  I handle my Twitter followers in much the same way as my Facebook friends.  The only difference is that Twitter publishes your numbers and gives you the choice to follow back.
I have 467 Twitter followers (and just like Facebook, about half are real friends) and I only follow 188 of those people back.

If I broke everything down by percentages (and trust me I’ve thought about doing it), I’d guess that my Twitter follow-back rate and the percentage of people I keep in my Facebook feed is pretty equal.

So my question is this: do you see any benefit from deleting Facebook friends from time to time? I’ve definitely been deleted by others…so I know that Drew isn’t the only one.  Someone shed some light.