The terrible reason I hold on to annoying Facebook friends

I refuse to de-friend annoying people on my Facebook because their stupid posts make me feel good about my own life.
There. I said it. Now before you reach for your pitchfork (or hurry down to Bunnings because you don’t have one handy to stab me with) please allow me a moment to explain myself … because this monster over here loves to prove people wrong. And maybe you’re a monster too without even noticing it.
Time to put your honesty cap on — have you ever scoffed at an attention seeking ‘hospital selfie’ that’s rocked up on your Facebook feed? You know the type, where the culprit fails to inform everybody why they’ve been admitted to increase the outpouring of sympathetic comments. Sometimes they’ll even refuse to reply to the countless ‘what’s wrong?’ comments adding more concern to their mystery illness, until someone discovers they’re only getting their wisdom teeth out — boring! (So annoyed I wasted that cute ‘get well soon’ meme on them.)
Have you ever cringed at a not-so-cryptic quote someone on Facebook has dedicated to ‘the person I won’t name but who knows who they are.’ Umm yeah they know who they are ... and so does EVERYBODY else on Facebook you idiot! You’re constantly preaching that you broke up and the quote is titled ‘better off without you.’ Hmm I wonder who you could be passively aggressively devoting this to?
And as if you haven’t smirked at a Facebook friend’s countless albums of selfies. It’s as amusing as it is annoying to find yourself clicking through their 87th ‘duck face’ pout. Even though you were bored by selfie #12 there’s something intriguing about lurking through the inner-workings of someone who p****s you off.
If you’ve found yourself doing ANY of these things and not deleting the offending Facebook profile on the spot then you’re just as evil as I am (so take your finger-pointing-emoji elsewhere thanks.) Seriously though, why don’t we simply de-friend then and there? What is it that gets us addicted to those ‘so bad they’re good’ posts from an annoying profile?
It must be the car-crash theory — it’s so horrible that you can’t look away. And I guess we’re getting something out of it. A sick satisfaction that’s achieved from comparing ourselves and thinking we’re better.
It’s natural to constantly weigh up what we have against the rest of the world and Facebook is no exception. We do it so unconsciously we hardly even realise it. When you see someone in tight jeans you compare whether your own legs look as good in denim. When you scroll through a mate’s ‘European holiday album’ on your lunch break, you wonder how much better their life is than yours right now. Are my muscles as big? Is my job as exciting? Is my partner as romantic? Is my lunch as tasty? Is my house as expensive? It’s innate to want to know how we stack up against the person next to us. And if you think about it, that’s the entire reason we share stuff on social media: to show people how well we’re doing.
We post our lives online by shouting as loudly as possible on a digital billboard all the stuff worth shouting about. Our Facebook profiles are just a self-edited version of our existence and what makes the cut online paints a way more glamorous picture of the everyday reality. Because let’s be honest, who’s posting photos of themselves paying bills or staring at a work power point slide with a ‘Valencia’ filter?
Someone else’s Facebook making you feel better about yourself is essentially what society has been doing for decades — finding humour in others’ misfortune. Think of someone tripping over — it’s hilarious. A ‘Fail compilation’ on YouTube — entertaining. And even ‘Funniest Home Videos’ — evil yet really, really funny. Which is weird considering the show’s host Shelley Craft always seemed to be the world’s nicest human being. SEE! Even nice people can be evil! Which quite frankly makes me feel better about my whole ‘shocking confession’ thing.