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Health & Fitness

Is It Live Or Facebook?

So when someone tells you about something, it's hard to know if they saw it happen, heard about it happening or read about it happening on buttcrackbook.

In this day and time it’s hard to keep a hold on the fine line between truth and fiction. Between what actually happened and what you might have heard about happening. Remember that thing about believe only half of what you see and none of what you hear? The only problem with that is with the new graphic programs, a person can make you see and believe anything.

Worse, with the vast numbers of social media sites, you will now hear everything about everybody. The best number I could find was a little over 3,600 social media sites, and this number does not include dating sites. This begs the question, is it live or facebookorex? Is it real or did you hear about it on facebook? Did it happen to you or to that slightly ugly forty-something who always has a head ache and takes pictures like a model, but a model of lunar landscapes. The facebook friend who informs the world every time a bothersome pimple turns up on her backside. This is a friend who would have posted a picture of said pimple if it weren’t illegal to do so, and she has probably sent a picture of said pimple to some of her friends in private messages. Aren’t you glad you aren’t actually her friend, but the friend of a friend of her friend’s friend?

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How about the friend who is always fighting with her in-laws and doing so in front of the world? Don’t you love that one? One family member will say something about another and then the entire family will comment on the original comment that should never have been commented in the first place. Do we seriously need to know that Honey Boo Boo’s female cousin is having an affair with the girl at the Piggly Wiggly who is also her cousin? Do we care that one caught the other having sex with a giraffe or that somebody has graphically enhanced pictures to prove it?

There is a popular train of thought that says social media is actually making us lonelier. Which means it is making those already lonely much more lonely. It must be hard to sit in front of the computer and have to invent something to say because you don’t really have something to say. Or to have to take some ridiculous close-up picture that looks like the aforementioned lunar landscape picture to post, just to have something to post. All that is left is to talk about is your cousin’s, brother’s, mother’s, eating or sexual habits and oh, yeah, don’t forget how awful her feet smell.

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Wait, how about those friends who are the most negative people you know, who only post those sick, twisted quips about what a true friend, mother, sister, brother, father, husband or wife is. The positivity of such things positively makes you sick. How about the ones who are simply begging for attention?  Their messages may say many things, but what they truly say is, "I have not heard from you in three hours if you are really my friend you will like and share this ridiculous statement that I was not creative enough to write, but am re-posting."

How about those friends you actually know in the real world that preach in the virtual world and practice what they preach against in the real one? It’s Tuesday, and God wants you to know that I accidentally dropped my joint in my beer while at the strip club. Where is that giraffe when you need it?

People will say things in the cyber world they would never dream of saying in the real world, where the fist might actually meet the face. Reviews are a good example. I read a review of a short story last week. The story was nine pages long and seemed entertaining enough, but one of its characters was a prostitute. Someone gave it a less than one star rating and ranted about its historical inaccuracies. This, better than thou, then went on to write a five-page review about a nine-page story. This loving compassionate follower of God, who honestly just had a problem with prostitution, spewed ugliness, prejudice and hate for five pages. Please find something better to do with your time. I’m glad that wasn’t my story, by the way.

So when someone tells you about something, it’s hard to know if they saw it happen, heard about it happening or read about it happening on buttcrackbook.

If I get asked to playing another game on facebook, I’m going to become the virtual equivalent of going postal, whatever that means.

As a tour guide in Miami Beach, I have seen and heard about most everything. I see things that I will never forget and things I wish I could forget, but many times I can prove these things. Most do not include giraffes, but might be a little too sensitive to show pictures of. Here are two I talk about every day that are not.

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