Bad, Bad Mood

I didn't start off the day in a bad mood...really!  It probably doesn't help that I got about 2 hours sleep last night, but really that's no excuse.  The culprit is easy to name--Facebook!  Is it just me, or is that site kind of the devil?  (I kid, I kid...sort of)

I, like many people I assume, am friends with a whole lot of people that I wouldn't stop on the street to talk to.  People I went to elementary school with, college "friends", people I exchange emails with at work.  You get the idea.  Of course, I am friends with people I actually communicate with, family (great way to exchange pictures), parents of my kids' friends (great way to arrange play dates and look for sketchy pictures to clue me in always to have playdates at my house)...but the vast majority of people I am facebook "friends" with are people I haven't physically talked to in a hundred years, give or take a few.

At first it's good fun.  Hey look!  There's old whats-his-name!  What a cute family he has now!  Or...Ha!  Look at that receding hair line and pot belly-serves him right!  Like I said, good fun.

But have you noticed that things on Facebook tend to be all flowers and rainbows, all the time?  I mean sure, your BFF from 3rd grade probably has fights with her husband from time to time, but to hear her tell it in status updates he's the Best. Husband. Ever.  Or her kids never fight, or have an accident, or she still keeps in touch with all 627 people from your graduating class.  In fact, they get together every week for dinner.  Does it ever just make you feel inferior? 

You have to put it in perspective of course.  Most people are putting the best of themselves out there, and leaving the ugly out of it.  Why wouldn't they?  But it's still so easy to get caught up in comparison shopping.  He got 317 Happy Birthday's on his wall?  How did he get so many?  People didn't even like him back in the day...

Or, after I had kids I managed to hold on to one friend, because really...who has time for more than one after they have kids?  So how has your junior high nemesis managed to talk on the phone to all of our old classmates every day, meet them for yoga in the mornings, get together for mexican night once a week, create a Wii baseball team with them, and go to book club with them too?  Am I the only one that can't make time to keep friends?  Really?

And let's don't forget the comment judgment.  Was that status update aimed at me?  Was that person's comment a dig at what I said last week?  Is he talking about ME?  Is she making fun of ME? 

It can actually be a bit of a nightmare.  It's worse than any clique in high school ever was.  Does anyone else out there have Facebook Syndrome?