Social Media From A Neurotic Perspective

The Rescinding of a Facebook Friend Request

1. Send a Friend Request to a new acquaintance you believe shares your desire to be ‘friends.’
2. Notice the acquaintance’s updates in your News Feed, despite having never received notification that they’d accepted your request. Click on their profile to say hi.
3. Realize that, despite having access to their mundane updates, you’re actually not friends. Your friendship is ‘pending’ review, like a goddamn job application. Welcome to Friend Request Purgatory, Population: You. After all, now that you have semi-access to the Wonderful World Of Your Would-Be Friend, what more do you want? Reciprocation? Acknowledgment? Fat chance.
4. Notice that you can cancel the friend request; contemplate the implications. Will they notice? Will they care? What would you say if they confronted you? “Never mind! Thought you were someone else, I actually don’t want to be friends with you despite having several ties to you IRL. Guess the 1,893 people you’re Facebook friends with are really special to you BAI!”
5. Decide against rescinding your Friend Request; feel a sense of dread anytime you anticipate running into your negligent acquaintance.

Who Unfollowed Me

1. Allow the ‘Who Unfollowed Me’ app to access your information. Whenever you login, it’ll tell you who unfollowed you on Twitter! Just what you’ve always wanted!
2. Login a week later. You’ve lost three followers. They all appear to be bots. Except one, one of them could be a real person. “Why did KillaBarbie unfollow me? I mean it’s not a big deal… just wish I could understand why…”
3. Notice every time your follower count drops, login to Who Unfollowed Me.
4. “Lizbeth unfollowed me?! But… we’re actually friends. That seems insanely inappropriate. What the shit…”
5. “I should unfollow her back. She fucked up my whole ratio, inconsiderate bitch.”
6. “…but what if she has Who Unfollowed Me, too?! Then she’ll know I unfollowed her. Maybe this is a bad idea. Nevermind.”

Facebook Poke

1. Receive a Facebook Poke, which is disconcerting if only for the fact that no one Facebook Pokes anymore.
2. “What do I do with it? Poke back? Okay, then what? Play Ring Around The Pokie until my friendship with this person wanes indefinitely? I did not sign up for this.”
3. Poke back.
4. Get Poked again.
5. Poke back.
6. Get Poked Again.
7. Avoid Poking for the foreseeable future. Avoid the person who Poked you for the foreseeable future.

GChat

1. Notice someone you find interesting has appeared in your GChat sidebar.
2. After a few days of close observation, come to the conclusion that they’ve committed to being ‘perma-busy;’ their status button is perpetually red.
3. Compare the person to your other ‘perma-busy’ friends and decide that it’s probably okay to GChat them.
4. Type, ‘Hey,’ then scurry off to the bathroom as to kill time while waiting for a response.
5. Return from the bathroom. No response.
6. Fifteen minutes later. No response. Close the chat window and pretend you didn’t initiate chat with a disinterested party.
7. Receive a response. “Hey! Sorry, really busy can’t chat right now… let’s get drinks soon!”
8. Sigh. Close the chat window and pretend you didn’t initiate chat with a disinterested party. Again.

Turntable.fm

1. Join a room and study the “Room Info” to ensure that you don’t embarrass yourself by playing the same song twice.
2. Begin DJing. Choose a semi-popular, not-too-mainstream, highly inoffensive, catchy song that seems in line with the theme of the room.
3. Grow despondent when you notice that not one, not one avatar is dancing.
4. Wonder if you should abstain from ‘liking’ your fellow DJ’s musical choices as a form of punishment.
5. Sit in on two or three rounds, feeling increasingly alienated by everyone in the room.
6. Feel certain that everyone is secretly wishing you’d give up your seat and leave the room.
7. Announce that you are leaving the room; wince when a member of the audience says, “Finally.”
8. Coddle your ego by opening iTunes and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Phish Food.

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