two way street

love is a two way street. friendship is a two way street. work is a two way street. you must give to get and vice versa. and social media, whatever your vice may be, sure as hell is a two way street.

i am not saying everyone MUST have some form of social media, but what i am saying is if you have a twitter profile with a little white egg as your profile pic, you are telling the social media world that you created this page and it is inactive. you've never tweeted, no pics, not even a favorite to someone else. maybe you created it and didn't like it, that's fine. maybe you weren't sure how it worked. maybe you just completely hated the idea of it. whatever the case may be, you at one point created an account and said account has now been forgotten.this rule obviously doesn't just apply to twitter, it extends to instagram and facebook as well (i use these as examples because they are the three outlets i primarily use, although im sure social media two way street trolls exist elsewhere).

if your facebook profile hasnt been updated since march 2011, i am going to assume you've abandoned ship. you are out, really living life. enjoying the shit out of it and have left us social media junkies to fend for ourselves. instagram account with no photos? maybe a sibling created it under your name and you arent even aware it exists. no problem.

EXCEPT there is a problem. a very big problem.

these ancient profiles and pages that you visit like a burial ground, actually have lurking users. that's right. people will only pretend to be an inactive member of social media, only to slip up one day, and admit their stalking capabilities. we all know someone like this in our life. and nothing irks me more.

social media is a two way street. if i am going to put up sepia photos of my saturday night birthday fiesta, tweets of my thoughts on The Mindy Project, subliminal status' that i want someone to read- but not really, check in at a trendy restaurant - you have to reciprocate! you are not allowed to hide behind your abandoned page and just look at mine and give me nothing in return. that is a one sided relationship, and that does not work for me.

the absolute best case scenario is when you catch someone who is an inactive member of social media society, bring up social media - "did you see what so & so tweeted?" or "yea your status said you were in Mexico". BITCH how the fuck do you know i was in mexico. according to your facebook you havent been on since 2009!  you have no right to know if i'm in mexico without telling me where you've been since 2009. 



social media should be used to share the good, the bad, and the ugly. and if you are not willing to share, you sure as hell aren't going to get the goods on my life. weddings, babies, trips, birthdays, deaths, divorces - you want the drama and gossip and want to stay in the loop, but dont want to reciprocate. get the fuck out of here. either start sharing or i vow moving forward, to delete you lurking jerks. you only pretend to be anti social media and pretend like youre above it, but in fact what you do is worse, so much worse.

Uppers

so i know i haven't posted anything in a while, and trust me it's not for lack of things i want to say, but rather because my actual job has been occupying all 8 hours of my work day (how rude). but today i'd like to discuss something that affects all of us. maybe it's someone in your family, someone at work, or your very own spouse. but in some way, we are all affected by TOUP, the one-upper person. allow me to explain.

Jack: How was your weekend? (TOUP will always seem genuine at first, but this question is really just so they can answer)
Jane: Oh good, had a family party at that new restaurant down town, drank a bottle of wine by myself - so I'm paying for it today.
Jack: (TOUP will never acknowledge what you just said, because they weren't paying attention, they were just waiting for you to finish so they can answer their own question) Yea I drank like 4 bottles of wine, did 3 lines of coke, vomited on a stripper at the even newer restaurant uptown. And i don't even have a hangover. Crazy!

no Jack, or whoever you are in my life, it's not crazy. you're lying. and i can't call you out on it because when i do, the lie gets deeper and the story gets crazier - instead of one hooker there will be 5, instead of drinking 4 bottles of wine you will have drank 12. so instead you get away with always having to one-up me on my story. and it's fine, you just look like an ass.
this person can not resist the urge to constantly exaggerate their stories to make them appear cooler than yours. 

• if your commute was 2 hours, theirs was 3. 
• if you had 3 slices of pizza, they finished a pie. 
• if you can hold your breath for 1 minute, they can hold theirs 1 hour.

Amanda: oh it's so funny, my sisters kid just started talking and she repeated the word ass.
Andy: yea my brothers son said the word dick, hilarious! and then he walked around all day repeating it, we went to church and he said it to the priest. it was great.
(sometimes in a desperate attempt to one-up you, they make them self or others around them, look bad)

Bob: What do you have for lunch?
Beatrice: Tuna sandwich.
Bob: Me too! (and you think wow, no one-upping, but alas...) it's this new kind of tuna, it has zero mercury and was caught off the coast of South Africa or something, they can it and send it to whole foods, its so delicious. it's really expensive, but worth it.

the worst part is we all know someone like this, but dont confront them. or maybe you have and then quickly learned its pointless. so whenever TOUP in your life tells a story or answers a question., we just smile and nod, but on the inside we are like: