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The 12 Facebook Friends You Fear the Most

by Matt Hershberger Jan 22, 2015
1. Friends who constantly post about their relationship

The internet is not a place for happiness. Happiness belongs in the real world. The internet is the place where misery finds its company. If you’re constantly posting about how happy your relationship is, pretty much everyone knows that it’s not all that happy.

2. Friends who constantly post about their babies

Look: we all love kids. But by definition, a miracle is something that doesn’t happen frequently. It’s a rare an unexplainable event. UNICEF estimates that 353,000 kids are born every day, and birth is totally explainable by science. So your child is not a miracle, unless you want you set your standard for “miracle” so low that that socks and intestinal bacteria count as miracles as well. We’re happy you have a kid, but please: give your posts some variety.

3. Friends who complain about relationship and baby posts

“Oh my gawwwwd, will everyone stop getting engaged / having babies already?”

Other people are allowed to be happy. Stop it.

4. The single-issue friend

We all have our passions and issues that we favor over others. But there’s a certain type of person who hijacks every conversation and makes it about their issue. “NONE OF THIS would be a problem if we fixed education / healthcare / campaign finance reform.” Yeah, guy. The world’s that simple. You figured it out.

5. The friend who agrees with you politically, but is also a little bit racist

You’re having a political discussion with someone you disagree with, and then a friend of your chimes in to support your argument. You appreciate the support, but then they say something like, “Muslims are the most violent religion,” or “Look, I have a lot of black friends, but…”

And now the discussion is over and you need to re-evaluate literally everything you believe.

6. The yogi

The point of yoga is to become more in touch with your body and the world. You posting a picture of yourself twisted into a donut is not either of those things. It is you trying to show off. Or possibly trying to get laid.

7. The first-time-abroad traveler

We know your world just changed, and we’re happy for you. But literally everyone who has traveled before has felt what you’re feeling. This isn’t just something that you and your abroad friends understand.

8. The parent or grandparent

Yes, I occasionally drink and experiment with other chemicals. Yes, I’ve been in sexual relationships. Yes, I sometimes swear. No, I was not thinking you’d ever find out.

9. The not-your-parent

The parent-of-a-friend or your parent’s-friend-who-for-some-reason-friended-you are the most terrifying people on Facebook. Their politics are all over the board, they aren’t particularly good at sensing irony or sarcasm, and their attempts at internet speak are excruciating.

10. The multi-album traveler

Back in the early days of Facebook, you could fit about 60 pictures into a photo album. It was a good standard: most people, honestly, aren’t going to look at all 60, but that’s a good round number for your trip, and it required some cutting down. Now, Facebook albums can fit about 1000 pics, and people will still post multiple albums for each of the trips they’ve been on. And they’ll keep posting the pics for months. Please: if we wanted to see Honduras that badly, we’d go ourselves.

11. The Candy Crusher

Turn off those notifications, and stop inviting me to play. I know you don’t want to actually play with me: you just invited me because you need extra lives and are hopelessly addicted to the game.

12. The Dieter

Dieters who are changing their diet to become healthier people are fine. They’re probably not posting about their diet anyway. But dieters who are dieting for moral reasons are terrifying. Look, Paleo dieters: we understand that cavemen ate the way you eat and that this supposedly makes the food more “natural,” but do you know what else is unnatural? Electric foot massagers. Tempur-Pedic Mattresses. Air conditioning. Unnatural things are great. We don’t have the same problem with unnatural things that you do.

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