The Facebook Block

The Facebook Block
"To stalk or not to stalk, that is the question"

If you haven’t heard of Facebook yet, then you must be living under a rock, or socially network challenged. Along with the advantages of Facebook i.e. keeping up with long distance friends, reconnecting with old ones and stalking new ones, also comes jealously, insecurity and might I mention again, stalking…which in the state of North Carolina is defined by the General Assembly as: a pattern of following, observing, or monitoring a person, which can very much describe your own Facebook behavior. My favorite so far of the Facebook shananagins would have to be what I call the “Facebook block”. It has to be the ultimate…”Oh no he didn’t” move in cyber history…well besides stealing someone’s identity. Until recently I thought I had been the only one of my friends to get cyber dissed by a jealous ex that had to read into ever status update and message written on my wall. My little bit of advice to anyone who feels the need to snoop or cyber stalk a significant other is…if you are going cross that line and go looking for something, you better be prepared for what you may find! And most of the time, you are going to over react and assume that every status update has to do with you or that random girl in one of his pictures is a tramp that’s trying to steal your “potential man”.

The first time I got the good ol…”in ya face…Facebook block” it was right after this guy and I had decided to part ways and end our “romantic” relationship. A few days later I spent some time with friends, playing board games and goofing off. They taught me this new charades game called “Bernardo” which was an absolute riot which I promote heavily to anyone who has a sense of humor. Just a little bit about myself, I tend to cover up my true feelings with humor and use it as a defense mechanism to keep the male species wondering so that I never feel vulnerable…which is a whole other blog in itself. Anyhoo, although I was little bummed about the recent events…I choose to see the bright side of things so the next day I updated my status to “I would like to thank my friends for introducing me to my new friend Bernardo last night, we had too much fun.” Definitely an inside joke, only the people I was hanging out with would have known what I was talking about. Which also brings me to another Facebook etiquette rule: Thou shalt not make comments on someones page about a update if you have no clue what they are talking about, clearly its not meant for everyone to understand or they would have included a definition. Moving right along…not 30 min after updating my Facebook I received a text message from “the boy” stating “I wish you a Bernardo the best, hope you have a good life together”!!!!! What the heck, really? I had to laugh out loud because he really made himself look like a jealous fool. Granted, he may have a still been a little sore about the decision to part ways but that reaction only solidified my decision that we were not meant to be together and if he tend to read into my sarcasm with jealously….NEXT!

Another victim of the “oh no he didn’t…Facebook block” was one of my girlfriends, we will call her Miss West for privacy. We had just gotten back home from Vegas a few days before, where not everything stays BTW!! A few pictures were posted, some great, some incriminating and some completely innocent. But within hours, she got the “block” from her ex. I am sure it’s all because she looked too hot, had too much fun and met some sexy men along the way, all with absolutely nothing to do with him. Bless his heart, I suppose he thought she would be miserable without him in Las Vegas and would receive no attention from any man….well SURPRISE, life does go on! Like I said before, if you can’t handle it, then don’t look for it!

Allow me to re-iterate about Facebook etiquette, it does exist, maybe not to all members, but for myself…I make up my own rules. As I mentioned earlier about the no comment when you have no clue rule, here is another one. Thou shall not try and date me via Facebook. If you do not have the cojones to ask for my phone number (bc I think it’s crazy if you publish it along with your address) or pick up the phone and call me, then you won’t have the cojones to keep up with me. I know men and women both are super confident when they are typing away about how great they are behind their laptops but if you have not updated your picture in a year and are not nearly as cool and you convince yourself you are, then chances are, your cyber relationship will fizzle as soon as its gets some fresh air.

I find the Facebook block to be humorous and sad at the same time. You can bet though, if a person is going to over react because of your status updates, imagine what it would be like trying to make plans with your girlfriends for a ladies night or for guy’s night. That kind of person will be elbow deep in your night stand, cell phone, email accounts, trying to find something incriminating in your information and or pictures and will convince themselves that you are doing something wrong. You can’t control what people think about you and how they perceive you via your Facebook, but you can control what you put out there and who you consider a “friend.”

This goes for men and women, if you choose to Facebook stalk someone you are interested in or a current boyfriend or girlfriend, do not and I repeat do not assume that their status updates, relationship status, wall comments and picture captions have anything to do with you! It’s Facebook for crying out loud, an online social network, not a meet and greet and hopefully land the person of your dreams! It is meant to keep people in touch, not to check their every move. Note to self, if you recognize the things I have mention as your everyday online activity….you may have an issue. If you find yourself looking through their pictures and studying their friends and any one else of the opposite sex to try and figure out if there something’s going on between them…you have an issue. And last but not least, Facebook is addictive and puts up a cyber wall between people. Although I really enjoy having my account and showing off my fabulous life to all my “friends” to see and be seen, you still need to put forth the effort to be more involved in your relationships. So ladies in gentlemen in this world of internet dating, social networking and none physical contact relationships, I encourage you to be more involved with your social life. Instead of an email or text, send them a card, and yes I mean via snail mail. Get together for dinner and drinks…be more accessible because lets just be honest a wall post/poke-which I don’t get/message on Facebook could be a tiny bit flattering from a “potential” but we are humans and are meant to connect and have relationships IN PERSON….not through the use of electronics. So Facebook block or not, get out from behind your laptop and prove your profile!!