Wanda Round, like 500
million people all over the world, is a Facebook addict. She visits her page first
thing in the morning. So many exciting things must have happened during the
night – so many “like it” signs, so many comments – they are more important
than brushing teeth. Of course, there
are personal and household chores to attend to – she logs off in about an hour
but needs to keep re-visiting her page for one-hour periods at approximately few-minute
intervals throughout the day. This continues well past mid-night, till sleep –
that unwelcome but necessary habit – intervenes.
In other words, her
marriage consists of three entities – she, her husband, and her Facebook
account, not necessarily in that order. A perfect ménage à trois, if ever there
was one. Of course, there are the kids, but they were born in that primordial
era when people looked at each other instead of at Facebook. Lucky for the
kids, I must say. (There are rumours that
kids are in short supply in this era of social networking…. But that merits an
investigation..)
They say the average
Facebook user has about 130 friends and I say they are lying. The average
Facebook user would have a list of friends running from here to Timbuktoo, with
more pouring in by the hour. A
spaghetti-style cobweb of people who never knew that the others existed, till the
other day…..and now they are hopelessly entangled like flies in blobs of
marmalade, in pursuit of commenting excellence…..for there is nothing else to
do on Facebook except write comments on each other’s pages for no particular
reason. Pretty much the IT equivalent of chewing gum.
The only variation to
that activity is the changing of profile pictures and uploading some others. Comment,
upload an album, change picture, comment again, change picture, comment, change
picture again, upload another album, comment…. goes the cycle. Stringing your
personal pictures on the Net. Like laundry.
Coming back to the original
thread – Wanda Round was suddenly faced with a serious challenge to her
equanimity. Not that she is known for her “equanimus” – the gentle ripples can
be seen from afar – but it now had waves, or rather breakers with white foam
crashing on the rocks. This was caused by two men who happened to be her
Facebook friends.
For want of better
names and in order to not get too personal, let us call them “Adam Sapple” and “Ben
Dover”. Now, as things came to pass, Ben did something to annoy Adam, who
immediately removed the fellow from his list of friends. It did not stop at that
– Adam Sapple wanted all his friends to follow suit and quarantine Ben Dover.
Pretty much like a kindergarten bully. And we are talking of middle aged blokes
here, well past their mid-life crisis phase, with a penchant for chatting up
other peoples’ wives. (The “Love thy neighbour” principle in the Bible –
remember ?)
Quarantining Ben
Dover as an isolated action would not have been too much of a problem if Ben’s
wife, let’s call her “Betty Diddit” had not entered the scene. You see, Betty
Diddit, also one of the 500 million we talked about earlier, suffers from a
severe and chronic case of Like-it-itis. It is a Facebook-induced condition,
where the “I like it” portion of the brain gets severely inflamed and sufferers
go feverishly around the virtual world liking everything they see.
As things got
unravelled, Betty Diddit is a great fan of Wanda Round. She is also a great fan
of a great many other things, but that is another story. She likes everything Wanda
does to her Facebook page, and don’t ask me why. If Wanda blocked Ben Dover,
then the most likely reaction from Betty Diddit would go like this :
You blocked my
husband ? I like it.
That means I should
block you. (I like that too)
Now tell me, who likes
to block an ardent fan ? Wanda Round thought about it till she got depressed.
And did nothing. Betty Diddit was just too valuable to lose.
A few days later Adam
Sapple found out that Wanda had still not blocked Ben Dover. He tried to bring
up the subject and got a lecture from Wanda on how he should patch up with Ben. Though we are not privy
to that conversation, we can very well imagine how it must have gone, having
known Wanda Round and her ilk all these years… hauled over hot coals, would be
putting it mildly…
The gist of the
problem is that Adam Sapple and Ben Dover are still not talking to each other
but are friends with Wanda Round, while Betty Diddit is engrossed in doing what
she does best - liking things.
(What
we do not know though, is whether Betty liked Adam Sapple too…..)
***
The latest update is
that Wanda Round has moved to Google+ for the time being and planning for Twitter.
Another blob of
marmalade….
(Author’s note : The names are pure fiction… any link
to any living person is an act of God)
