10 Ways to Get Your Shit Blocked from my Facebook News Feed

Listen, before we even begin this, I want to say upfront that I am far from a perfect Facebook status updater, and I am sure I am blocked from some of my friends' news feeds, particularly because I am a chronic offender of item number four in this list.

But right, so the other week I was home for the holidays. And I was talking to an old high school friend with whom I am friends on Facebook. She mentioned something that had happened in her life, and then proceeded to say "But I'm sure you already saw that on Facebook." I squirmed uncomfortably, and after trying unsuccessfully to play it off like I knew what she was talking about, I admitted that I had her updates blocked from my news feed on Facebook. She was offended, and yes, this entire conversation is absurd. But at this point I accept that Facebook inclusion is a big part of the ball of love that is how friendships are defined. So I explained to her why I had blocked her, which frankly didn't make the situation any better. And now, for complete clarity, I will list the 10 things that will get your ass removed from my Facebook news feed (and probably a lot of others).

1. "I Love You Baby"
Oh my god. These are the worst. Now, we all know that at this particular moment in life I would really like to find a good relationship, and perhaps even occasionally trade sweetness on Facebook. HOWEVER, once your Facebook status updates start to look like this, you have an issue:

Status Update: I'm on my way to Wal-Mart!
Comment from Significant Other: I luv u 4ever. I can't wait to see you! You're the most amazing woman ever.

Status Update: Just stopped at Starbucks! Try the new Sumatra!
Comment from Significant Other: I can't wait until you get back from Starbucks! You're amazing! We can share coffee! I luv u 4ever and ever.

Status Update: Staying home to watch movies with Significant Other.
Comment from Significant Other: IT'S GOING TO BE THE BEST EVENING. I luv u so much. I love our life. I love how you make our life. You're an amazing woman.

(insert variations of the above for an ENTIRE PAGE).

I'm not making those up, by the way. They're pretty darn close to a real life example. Listen, we're all glad for your happiness and your ability to freely express that happiness on FACEBOOK. But NOBODY WANTS TO LOG ON TO FACEBOOK AND SEE THIS SHIT ALL DAY LONG. Get a room. Get a cell phone. Get something. By day four of this nonsense, BLOCKED.

2. Telling Me About Your Child's Potty Training
The caveat is that if you do this once, and you do it in an amusing way where it's like "Ha, ha, it's so cute, my kid can use a can now, big moment!" that's cool. The other caveat is that if your Facebook friends list is made up ENTIRELY of other mothers who will find the progress of your child's potty training fascinating, then this is cool. Go for it.

But unless you have a flair for writing that will make potty training updates into a hilarity of a literary masterpiece, or if I'm nowhere on your Facebook friends list (by which I mean you truly do have a list full of mothers), then PLEASE DO NOT GIVE ONGOING STATUS UPDATES ON YOUR CHILD'S POTTY TRAINING. Nobody wants to know about "almost" or "switched to pull ups" or how proud you are in the miracle moment that your child uses the potty for the first time, delivered in five poetic status updates in sequence as the child realizes the power of the potty and then uses it and then smiles impishly up at you afterward. SERIOUSLY. Do this more than once? BLOCKED.

3. Jesus is the Reason
It's not like I've never thrown my own personal life philosophy at you in a Facebook status update. And it's not really like I have a problem with the occasional reference to God or Buddha or Jesus or the Goddess or scripture or what have you in your status updates. Sometimes, in fact, it's quite refreshing and gives a good reason to pause and think during the day.

Where we, however, begin to run into a problem is when you're updating five times a day telling me what Jesus would do in any given situation. Firstly, why? Much like plastic Virgin Mary and her light up camel outside of a fire hall are not going to convert anybody to Christianity, your five status updates per day about the glory of your Lord or the teachings of ancient shamanism are not going to convert me (or anybody else). In addition to which, it's annoying.

We have church for a reason. We have many, many internet groups who will happily talk about religion with you ALL DAY LONG. I'm happy for your personally close and satisfying relationship with your God. I'm even happy to sometimes hear about it and discuss it with you. If I wanted to be preached to, however, there are five churches within a 10 minute walk of my place. And if you want to be a preacher, I suggest you get ordained and get a job somewhere where you flock can find you THAT IS NOT FACEBOOK. It's easy to get ordained. $25 and an internet connection is all you need. But if your Facebook status updates start reading like Sunday's church follow along pamphlet regularly, BLOCKED.

4. Chronic Drunk Updating
Ok, listen. Clearly, this is not going to get you blocked from MY Facebook wall. But it is going to get you blocked from a lot of other people's Facebook walls, so if you're going to participate, be aware.

I understand (intimately) how it happens. You're out, having a good time, loaded. Nobody has smartly removed your phone from your possession yet. You're set up on Facebook mobile, and you want to share your drunken happiness with the WORLD (or at least the 250 people who make up your Facebook world). Understandable! Share the love!

But much like somebody should take your keys from you around drink number three or four, somebody should probably take your Smart Phone from you around the same time (this also has the added benefit of reducing your drunk dial propensity!). And here's the thing, you'll probably be grateful for this later. Because sometime in the future, you'll go back and re-read your old Facebook posts and find those old updates and possibly wish that they weren't there for the world to see. I actually found one in which I updated Facebook on my way to a Vegas hotel room to have dirty, one-night-stand, Vegas sex in which I announced on Facebook that I was headed to said Vegas hotel room to have dirty, one-night-stand, Vegas sex. And I had a moment that I was unfamiliar with, which may have been embarrassment, when I re-read that.

Don't Drink and Drive. Don't Drink and Dial. Don't Drink and Text. And for goodness sake, don't drink and Facebook status update because those updates last FOREVER and are the property of Facebook. And also because if you do, for many people it will mean BLOCK.

5. Ultra Tragic Status Updates Designed as Cries for Attention
We all have our various ways of crying out for help, it's true. However, I don't think that way needs to be via your Facebook status update. If your life is really so bad that five times a day you need to update your Facebook status with a new moaning update about how your brain is confused and your heart is broken and you don't know what direction to go and you feel unloved and unpretty and unwanted and unsmart, then YOU SHOULD BE IN THERAPY, NOT IN FRONT OF YOUR LAPTOP. We all have bad days, and sometimes we express them on Facebook, to our 250 closest friends. And that's cool. But when your Facebook page starts reading like a "dialogue" page from "Vampire Diaries" or "Twilight", BLOCKED.

6. Ultra Tragic Hypocritical Updates Designed as Cries for Attention
But this, this is even worse than the plain old tragic update designed as a cry for attention! This is where you update your Facebook status to let us all know how miserable your life is, and then two hours later you update again in a moment of cluelessness with something that clearly alerts the rest of us that we've been suckers for falling for your act. It goes something like this.

Update #1: I haven't been paid in three weeks, I'm about to lose my job. Nobody is hiring and my current boss is an asshole. I'm about to lose everything I've worked for.
Update #2 (about 2 hours later): I know what I need! A great night out with a great band! I'm looking for Motley Crue tickets for Friday. Anybody got any? I don't want to pay more than $100 for two!

I didn't make that up, by the way.

Or this one.

Update #1: I dont' know what's wrong with me. I just can't get my life together. I feel like my brain and my body are in a constant argument.
Update #2 (about 2 hours later): I'm heading to the old port to go boozing again!

I didn't make that one up either.

Do it once, and I'll chalk it up to a bad day. After that? BLOCKED.

7. The Barrage of the Facebook Game Apps
Ok. I've sent a good karma or two on Facedbook during my day. Apps are not the issue. Please, use as many apps as you want. It drives Facebook traffic which thus drives revenue which thus allows us all to waste hours of our days on Facebook without paying a fee. And I don't mind going in once and blocking Bejeweled Blitz or iHeart from my news feed.

But it's when your Facebook existence makes you an app junkie that we start to have a problem. Once you're using Bejeweled + iHeart + Good Karma + Casino Games + Farmville + Fishville + Bingo Madness + Ask Karen Walker + Friend Quizzes + this weeks pass along app, then we have a problem. Because I can't keep up with you. My desire to keep my news feed free of annoying app updates can't keep up with how many of them I have to block from you, so I just.block.you.

You could solve this, you know. Don't be deluded into thinking that anybody cares about every Lexulous score you have, or wants to know how many sheep you saved from your virtual farm today. We don't. You can choose to not have those updates published to your friends news feeds. You should do that. Because if you don't, and you're app happy, BLOCKED.

8. The Micro Update Update/Over Integration of Your Twitter
This one is simple. If your Facebook status feed for the day, EVERY DAY, reads like this:

- Got up. What a great/crappy/gray/sunshine filled morning!
- Kid is off to school! Now it's time for me to get ready for work!
- Hey! We're out of coffee! Now that's a bummer!
- Made it to Starbucks! Whew! What a relief! Double caramel latted! lol! Right to my hips! lol
- Man! Traffic!
- Talked to JoeBob at the water cooler! I'm going to win the office pool hands down!
- Headed to lunch! Gotta love the McDonald's value meal! Right to my hips! lol
- Just read an email from Mary Jane. Tooooo funny!
- Looks like it might rain tonight! Hope everybody drives safely!
- Only two hours left! Can't wait till five o'clock!
- It's quitting time! Pack it up and head it home!
- Stopped at the grocery store! So crowded in there! Remind me never to shop for dinner on the way home again!
- Kids aren't home from school yet! Sports practice! Thank God I have some time to myself!
- Family dinner was great! Now off to homework!
- Are you watching "Two and a Half Men?" We are! Toooo funny! lol
- Time to put the kids to bed! Then...a glass of red wine! Straight to my head! lol
- What a long day! Ready for bed! Goodnight friends!

Seriously? SERIOUSLY? Every day you want me to read fifteen status updates on the exact status of your life, play-by-play? SERIOUSLY? Fucking seriously? You are ... BLOCKED.

9. If I Wanted To be Your Kids Friend, I'd Be Your Kids Friend on Facebook
This should in no way imply that I, or anybody else, doesn't want to hear about your kids, or see photos of your kids, or know about cool things that your kids did. I love that stuff. Especially because I'm far away from many of my friends who have kids and Facebook is the only way to keep up to date on them. But let me be clear...

I am your friend, and as a result your Facebook friend, because I think that you, the adult, the person, the non-child, is interesting and good. And I would ever so occasionally like to read a status update about how you are feeling, or what you are thinking, or your opinion on something. As soon as your Facebook status feed becomes a running update of your child, I lose interest (and so do a lot of people), because I am not the child's parent, or grand parent, or god parent. I am your friend. YOUR friend. And because your child is important to you, your child is important to me. But not so important that I'm going to read a week's worth of status updates about your kid. I'm not. As soon as your status feed becomes a daily ode to the activities of your child...BLOCKED.

10. Bitter Break Up Updates
Ok. Again, in fairness, this won't necessarily get you blocked immediately. In fact, I'll probably be highly entertained for at least a week. Particularly the part where you inevitably make-up and break-up a couple of times and change your relationship status FOR THE WHOLE WORLD TO SEE over and over again.

See my relationship status? See how it says single? That's what it's going to say until there is a ring on my finger (which probably means it will say that until the end of time) because YOU DO NOT NEED TO KNOW EVERY TIME I CHANGE RELATIONSHIPS. Much like you don't need to hear me venting for months on end, back and forth, via my status update, about what a tool my last boyfriend or guy I dated or guy I went on one date with was. There are things we force other people to experience with us via the Facebook status update, and there are things we should sort out on our own. If you chronically make me suffer through your breakups with you, then that's a problem because I have enough of my own to deal with. BLOCKED.

Bonus ways to get blocked from the news feed:
a. Repeated shirtless pictures of you flexing in front of your mirror - it's not about your sexuality, dude. It's about my not wanting to look at you shirtless, oiled up, and flexing.
b. Repeated talk of scrapbooking (SHIM-COXHILL, I'm talking to you, sister)
c. Ongoing references to new age movements, manifesting, or "The Secret". Shit. Seriously, forget the "ongoing." Do it once, I've probably dropped you from my friends list immediately.
d. Three Words: Sarah Palin Quotes (that's played out, guys)

So, I think that's it. For now. I'm sure there are other news feed blocking problems out there. I'm just not aware of them. Or of how I'm probably breaking them. I'm probably a pretty annoying Facebook status updater. You probably have me blocked right now. It's the drunk updates, isn't it?