Don't Be That Guy: How not to make your Facebook friends hate you.

We live in the “social media generation.” As a result of this sociological phenomenon, people are getting more awful. I lose my faith in humanity more and more each time I pull up Facebook or scroll through my twitter. So I am here today to help you all from slipping into a few stereotypes that I (and the rest of the world) find particularly awful. Don't be that guy.

1. Gaming Gabby. Don't be that guy who sends everyone 300,000,000 game requests on facebook. Seriously, if you have the time to spend hours every day playing Farm City Diner Candy Ville Crush or whatever, then I envy you and your spare time. Perhaps you should pick up a different hobby, like guitar, baking, cycling, stamp collecting, or anything else that does not require sending me a request every five minutes so that you can have an extra bag of virtual corn or something.
2. Selfie Sophie. Don't be that guy that feels the need to remind everyone you know of what you look like multiple times a day. Or week. Or month, really. WE HAVE NOT FORGOTTEN. No one is scrolling through their timeline and thinking “Oh wow! There's another picture of So-and-So, I've been wondering whether or not they still look the same as they did yesterday.” No. No one. NOT EVEN YOUR MOTHER. And then there's the boob selfies. These are an entirely different level of awful. Don't even pretend like you didn't strategically maneuver your arms and the camera angle to magnify your 34Bs to take up THE ENTIRE PICTURE. And then, just to make it more awful, you stick some kind of corny random quote at the bottom like “Rain is like my tears for you,” “Life is like Hitler, but you are like my hiding place,” or “The world will knock you down and tie you to train tracks, so let me be your Lassie.” BECAUSE THAT MAKES IT SO MUCH BETTER. And what does that quote even have to do with your boob-selfie anyway? Also, why not just put your actual motives as the caption? Like “Please, please pay attention to me because I'm sad and love my face,” or “I think my life is hard, so here's a picture of me. Please ask me what's wrong and then compliment me.” Even worse are the Bible verse selfies. What the heck does rising on wings like eagles or having faith like a mustard seed have to do with your face? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. You don't get bonus points with the Big Man for putting some of His words under a picture of your boobs.
3. Sad and Single Susie. Don't be that guy that rants and complains and moans about how single they are. Examples: “#singleprobz,” “I just wish I had someone to snuggle with,” “I'm all alone tonight...again.” Do you want to know why you people are single? Listen very closely because I'm about to change your life with earth-shattering truth: You are single because YOU NEVER STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT HOW SINGLE YOU ARE. What happened to this generation to make them think that all of the amiable single people are sitting around on social media sites and saying “Wow, this girl has been complaining about how lonely, boring, and needy she is for six whole months...I want me a piece of that.” They aren't. So just say no to #singleprobz. And if someone actually does pursue you on the grounds of your sad, sad needy tweets, then you had better head for the hills because it's probably either a murder or someone even more needy. And whenever you and your needy twitter boyfriend are crying to each other about how sad and needy you are, I will not help you. I will laugh at you.
4. The Fake Life Frannie- Don't be that guy that is so obnoxiously positive about their life that the rest of us want to strangle you. Like really, we all know that angels don't really follow you around throwing glitter at your feet and shoving you into unlikely blessed situations. I don't care how wonderful of a person you are, you have not been asked to be a part of someone's romantic engagement plans every day this week. You do not have random homeless people come bless you at every street corner and then fly away on angel's wings. And you certainly have not been offered 15 modeling jobs during your trip to Walmart. I cannot even imagine how much energy and strategic planning it takes to pretend to be happy and positive and perfect every minute of every day. You could take all of that energy being a social media superstar, bottle it up, and keep a house plant alive for longer than the Cold War. Misery loves company, overly-happiness makes everyone else hate your sparkly guts.
5. Negative Nancy- Don't be that guy who complains about EVERY SINGLE THING IN THEIR LIFE. I promise your life is not that bad and I will respond much more positively to your shameless cries for attention if you just go ahead and say “I am shamelessly crying for attention.” Nothing about those obscure facebook statuses or tweets that go something like “I can just never do anything right...I wish someone cared :(“ makes me care. In fact, it makes me want to throw an emaciated third world orphan with AIDs at you just to remind you that everything is not that bad. And, if someone with much more compassion and gullibleness than me asks you what's wrong, and you say “I don't want to talk about it,” I will hide a furby in your room at night across from a valley of legos so that when you try to run away from the devil toy, your feet will feel like they are being eaten by orcs. Obviously you want to talk about it, otherwise you would not have shamelessly pleaded with EVERYONE YOU HAVE EVER MET for attention.