All right, crabby-pantses, it’s time for another vent session. After the wild success of our first pet peeves post, authored by the excellently-named Baconcat, who has successfully combined two of my very favorite things into one username, and bbqcornnuts’ post on parenting pet peeves I didn’t even know I had, I got to thinkin’. We covered the obvious sources of irritation: driving, social courtesies, roommates and spouses, grammar, and a curious number of annoyances related to the mouth.
What did we leave out? There was only one original comment that mentioned Facebook. I’m disappointed in you all. Surely we can do better than that.
Bypassing the easy targets, like Farmville invitations and TMI statuses (though please, don’t hold back if that is indeed what peeves you), I’d like to share a few of my pet peeves.
1. Overuse of ellipses. Punctuation an ellipses is not a substitute for:
- Periods
- Question marks
- Commas
- Semicolons
- Spaces
Learn it. Live it.
2. Cryptic, attention-whoring statuses. The only things worse than these are the people who respond to them.
3. Facebook status arguments. We’ve all gotten into at least one of these (let me pretend I’m not the only one, okay?). Now you’re arguing with someone you most likely barely know, but god damn it, someone is wrong on The Internet and you’re not going to bed until they see how right you are. Not only are you now wasting your time and blowing up your Friends’ newsfeeds, you’re embarrassing yourself and the person whose status you’ve hijacked.
4. Status updates from people I despise, but am socially obligated to stay Friends with. This may also apply to those I am Friends with to preserve my own sanity and avoid more DRAMA. I’ve amassed quite a collection of these since graduation, and oh, what a wealth of irritation I can mine from their status updates alone.
We’ve got our fashion design major, with regular uploads of “high-fashion” photos of her and her design major friends sporting ill-fitting clothes and awkward facial expressions. I was recently treated to a couple of her rather obnoxious updates. Yesterday morning, she posted this: “Tried on swim suits today…it is time to work out. Now.” Then, not more than 24 hours later, this: “No incorrectly scaled patterns, my waist is not 33 inches wide…try 9 inches less…” According to my calculations, that’s a 24-inch waist. Gooch says I’m allowed to sock her one if I ever see her again. You’re all witnesses.
This last one’s personal beef for me, but I have to get it out there. I have a Friend (formerly best) who unFriended me last summer, for reasons we don’t need to get into. She recently reFriended me with a long apology I accepted. I do not like her, nor do I like her ex-fiancé. When they weren’t fighting, they were sickeningly affectionate with seemingly no regard for who was in the room. I’m talking baby talk, PDA, the whole nine yards. That’s why her status today was particularly vexing: “IF THESE PEOPLE DON’T STOP BEING SO AFFECTIONATE RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME I’M GOING TO VOMIT INTO MY COFFEE.” She’s taken to typing in all caps recently. I suppose she’s forgotten about the hours of vomit-inducing PDA my boyfriend and I were subjected to. I now have to refrain from replying sarcastically, unless I want to get into a Facebook status argument, and we all know how I feel about those. The irony is quite delicious, though.
5. Anyone who says, “And that’s why I don’t have Facebook.”
Image of attention whore via Natalie Dee.
