When Eighth Grade is Over, It Still Never Ends

My first text of the morning was from Kim. Kim, or KVC, as I like to call her, is one of my Vtown MOPS friends. I have so few Vtown friends who are not from MOPS that I probably only need to mention when a friend isn’t a MOPS buddy. But I have to mention it with Kim because if I have been any good as our MOPS coordinator this year, it is purely due to following her leadership. In the process of being her understudy last year we became friends, and this friendship is a source of total enjoyment for me. Today’s text from KVC was full of doom: “Well, it’s official. My mom found me on FB.” [cue scary music]

This is the plight of so many and it makes me wonder. Why does Facebook turn us back into junior highers? There is something so invasive about Mom seeing our profiles or being able to post on our walls! Is it that Mom is trying to be a friend? [eye roll] Like, whatever!! Almost all the people I know whose mom is their friend on Facebook did not request their moms for friends, but rather, accepted their mom’s friend request out of compulsion.

But it’s not just the mom thing (or in-law thing – pick your poison) that makes it like junior high. It’s looking at other people’s profiles. There are the status updates. Who was hanging out and didn’t invite me? Or, This is your millionth complaint about your elbow – Shut Up! And, there are the wall posts. Do you do anything all day besides Farmtown? Or, Why isn’t anyone writing on my wall?... except my mom! And it’s the friend box. How many friends do they have?... How many friends do I have?! And of course, the complete Facebook bitch-slap: the unfriending.

I have been the recipient of a few unfriendings on Facebook and it sucks. One time, an old friend was spring cleaning her Friend List; apparently I am the MC Hammer tape in the back of the closet. With another friend, I, and about fifty of my friends, were accused of spying and therefore denied access to the captivating world of her Facebook wall (I hope you sensed the sarcasm I intended here). But really, since I cared about the people who were my Facebook friends, it felt mean and unwarranted to be unfriended, much like being shunned at the lockers.

I never really responded to this morning’s text beyond, “Bust.” But the brace-faced, permed girl inside me is screaming to the Stussy-wearing girl with the scrunchy inside KVC, “DON’T DO IT!!!!”