Things Not To Do On Facebook

So by now we all agree that Facebook indeed is the most fabulous inventions of our times, right? From connecting to old pals, to making new ones, from finding one’s soul-mate to marketing one’s business- the list of all the fab things it does is simply endless.

And like the rose that comes with its thorns much like Pushpa Kamal Dahal who comes with his crackpot doze of Prachanda, Facebook too has its fair share of pitfalls.

Well, am at least hoping that you know, that you shouldn’t put up your nude, semi-nude, drunken pictures in your profile. Instances of people being fired, friendships breaking down, lovers breaking up because of whimsical facebook statuses, unrevised photo updates and other indefinable FB activities are countless.

Also all the regulars such as filtering your friend requests, avoiding constantly updating one’s whereabouts to prevent unforeseen stalking, robbery, crimes should be knowledge of common sense. So let me put off discussing all that run-of-the-mill humdrums and zero in right on the topic I wanna talk about today.

A woman from New Albany, Indiana says that one of her Facebook “friends” burglarized her house after she posted an update indicating that she and her fiancé would be out for the evening.

You know those silly, insignificant-at-the-first-glance facebook acitivities we indulge in? Of whose impact we come to know about only after the harm is done and there is no turning back? Let’s discuss that, shall we? And protect ourselves from all possible damage.

Check the list below to see if you’re an innocent partner in crime. 

·      Save yourself from“After 2 AM”:  Ted Mosby- the pivotal character from the hit sitcom “How I Met Your Mother” was popularly advised by his mother to heed her when she said, “nothing good ever comes after 2 AM.” But he’d break the 2AM rule anyway and would get himself in trouble all the time. The after 2 AM rule quite applies for facebook users too. If you’re awake until 2 AM then there are serious chances that youre most likely disoriented, drunk, depressed, or all of the above. And updating a status when in such an hour will most certainly prove harmful. So refrain yourself from ever posting anything after 2AM. Mosby’s mom said it, “nothing good is ever gonna come out of your head or into your facebook page after that.”

Needless to say, I am a big How I Met Your Mother fan. And at the time I penned down this article, I was watching back-to-back to series of it every day. Quite an inspiration lol :) 

·      Save yourself from “Down in the blue”: Near cousins to the “after 2 AM” rule, the “down in the blue” is another vice you should watch out for. Hey, we’re humans after all. And if we laugh sometimes, moments where we hurt and cry are inevitable too. Only, it doesn’t take long before we climb ourselves up from the bluesy abyss and if we see a status update that we registered when we were sad, ninety percent chances are, that it will indeed embarrass us. So avoid updating your profile when you’re sad. Getting out of momentary sadness is much easier than getting out of the huge drama that we accidentally wove in front of our hundreds of facebook friends by that one silly “down in the blue” update.

Barney Stinson once said in How I Met Your Mother, "As soon as I start getting sad, I stop being sad and start being awesome instead" Try that. Telling you from experience, it actually works. Dont listen to weepy emotional songs or watch movies from that genre at all because you'll fall into the dark pit so fast, it will take a lot of your energy to bounce back. Dont dwell in misery, you have every right to become happy and successful as the next person :)

·      Save yourself from “Posting photos with your guy/gal pal on your profile picture”:  You sure know that only the best of our pictures get the honor of making it to our profile picture. So when you share that space with someone else, you’re partly sharing the honor with him/her. While a group picture is purely harmless, you should however, think really hard before you decide to put up a picture of you with a friend of the opposite sex, especially if you are not too sure of the other person or of the relationship you have with that person. If you’re not in a very strong bond with the other person in the photo then avoid making it your display picture. Testimonials of people meeting their “the one” on facebook are aplenty, so you don’t wanna scare off your “the one” by putting up pictures of you with a non-important person. Also if you’ve only recently started dating the other person and its going really great, it’s a bad move to put your picture with him/her because that just puts too much pressure on the relationship. It sounds silly but think about it because it really isn’t.

Unless of course you really love the other person and honor their presence in your life. You know what they say, "If its in your heart, it's in your profile picture". But choose wisely :) 

·      Save yourself from “Celebrity Profile Pictures”: Talking about profile pictures, putting up celebrities’ pictures as your own is the most nonsensical fad I’ve ever seen. You are either butt-ugly, have an identity crisis or a lunatic to have a celebrities’ face as your own, possibly untrue but sorry my friends, but this is how others are gonna perceive you. Especially a big no-no if you wanted to impress that crush of yours. Unless of course, you’re in your early teens and you were just done popping your first pimple, promoting someone else’s face as your own is really… well- you- get- it.

 Save yourself from “Celebrity Names”:  And worst than having a celebrity picture as your own is putting up a celebrity name as if it belonged to you. I actually put up “Rachel Karen Greene” as my profile name after my favorite character from the sitcom FRIENDS and believe you me, it had people confusing and detesting it. It was only after several other changed names in my friendlist who seriously confused me and made me mad when I wanted to check them out with no results in the search bar, did I realize that putting up a celebrity, fake, improvised, wanna-be-hip names is so annoying.

And not just celebrity names but non-name facebook names are quite a hassle too, you know like, Stud Boy or Crazy Gal. "I wanna tag my friend in a photo of hers but what was her facebook name again"? ugh! 

And you sure dont wanna disappoint GOD :)

·      Save yourself from Poke: Not gonna say much on this except, virtually poking someone you barely know is the creepiest thing after murderers, pedophilias, molesters, rapists- not necessarily in the same order.  

Now would'nt you poke that....I mean her! :D

·      Save yourself from “Relationship Status Drama” : And finally wrapping up the list is saving yourself from the facebook romance drama. Think a million times before you change your status from single and a gazillion times before you set your profile to “in-a-relationship-with”. Until you’re officially engaged or happily married, linking your profile with any other person is actually never a good idea. And oh the break up and the mess to which a hundreds to thousands monitor with so much interest is definitely not sweet.

Psychics actually believe that there exists such a thing as the "evil eye" or in Nepali "akha lagnu" and therefore they suggest happy couples to shield themselves from jealous glares by imagining wrapping their relationship inside a protective energy.  I dont know if this will work but sounds quite interesting, I might as well try it myself and will tell you if it works *winkity wink*;-) 

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So there you go, that’s my list of “things not to do on facebook” you could agree or disagree. Because , after all, we all have our right to expression and a right to use our FB profiles any which way we like.

Besides, am kinda really hoping that most of who commit ,these facebook crimes don’t get to read this piece at all. Because if it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t be getting more than half  of my facebook entertainment from my FB homepage.

Until my next post. Happy facebooking. Cherio!

Q: Why should you create a Facebook Account with the name "Nobody"? A: Because when somebody posts something stupid you can say "Nobody Likes This!" 

Q: Why is Facebook like Jail? A: You have a profile picture, you sit around all day writing on walls, and you get poked by guys you don't really know! 

Q: Why is Facebook a great site for loners? A: Because it's the only place where they can talk to a wall and not be considered a loser! 

Q: Why is Facebook like a refrigerator? A: Because every few minutes you keep opening and closing it to see if there's anything good in it!