Ok, I realize the irony in calling out attention whores when I have a blog that documents that non-profundity of my life, as well as being one of those people who updates their Facebook status with random comments like, “Hello, English muffin. In 24 hours, you’re gonna get in my belleh.” I get that I really have no right to rag on fellow-attention whores, and I am not gearing this toward fellow bloggers or Facebookers who talk to their toast.
There are two people who’ve instigated this rant.
Person one: Lives what many would call an alternative lifestyle, including but not limited to self-admitted “vampirism” (which has nothing to do with blood-sucking) and seeking out open, non-traditional relationships. In her late 30s, she constantly posts as her Facebook status lyrics from 80’s unrequited love songs and complains about her lack of “cuddle partners.” Recently, she found a “cuddle partner,” but has been crushed in the past week or so by the fact that his wife must not really like them sleeping together. I’ve tried for many moons not to judge her. To each her own, I like to say, because I certainly wouldn’t want anyone judging me for my lifestyle choices, which include gluing my ass to the couch and complaining about being fat but not really doing anything about it. But the brazen cry for sympathy when things don’t work out as this person plans is really starting to chap my hide! I mean, really. If you want to stop getting sleep-induced headaches, go to bed when it’s dark out, not when the sun is coming up, and sleep the way your body intends! If you don’t want men to love you and leave you for their wives, don’t date married men! But pleeeease: recall that you made these choices. Complaining about the bad outcomes of bad choices is just redundant. And seeking out the sympathy of your friends in a public forum? Well, geez, why not just get your own cable-access reality series so we can at least WATCH the train wreck.
Person two: Has not really fully formed as a human being (ok, she’s really just in her early 20s). Posts as her Facebook status bon mots about her fabulous editing job, her career as a fabulous protestor and how she has no time in her busy busy life because she is just so fabulous. Ok, the fact is that I may be a teensy-bit jealous of her because, clearly, I am no longer in my early 20s with my whole life ahead of me. And I don’t have a fabulous editing job. What got me about this one is that …well, full disclosure, she’s my second cousin and when she posted on Facebook that my aunt had a heart attack, I got angry with her because that’s how I found out about it. When I asked her not to post family emergencies on Facebook, she accused me of censoring her. So I’ve been irritated about that for a while now. When she started updating her Facebook status with how fabulously she had participated in a recent protest, and felt so “pushed down by the Man” that she was incited to write an op/ed about the event (which she so fabulously shopped around), I decided she was really just an attention whore who must, at all costs, make sure everyone knows how fabulous she is in every moment of her life. Who knows. Maybe if the internets and blogging had existed twenty years ago as they do today, I might have been as much of an attention whore as she. I mean, for crying out loud, in MY early twenties I was dating and then married the bipolar freak from hell! I could have milked that for years! (Ok, just because I didn’t have a blog then, doesn’t mean I didn’t milk it a little, but that’s beside the point.)
A few minutes ago, I thought about asking my mother if I was that obnoxious when I was in my early 20s, but I realized I didn’t want to know the answer. I guess in my cousin’s case, I’ll just have to wait for her to grow up and become as jaded as the rest of us so she can realize on her own what an attention whore she once was.
Hey, at least I admit to it.
Finding Forty 