It's good to share but not that good

So as far as I could ascertain, the bloke was called Grant. He was supposed to attend the party with Stacey but they had a Barney earlier in the day so he went on his own. At said party he got drunk and was all over a girl called Hannah who, obviously, wasn’t doing anything to stop him.

Anyway, this somehow got back to Stacey so she dumped this Grant chap via text. He Facebooked her but she ignored him and changed her relationship status from “in a relationship” to “single”. He left a few messages on her answer phone and updated his Facebook status with something about why women are so difficult and, in turn, updated his relationship status to “it’s complicated”. Apparently Stacey now feels a bit guilty and doesn’t know what to do.

Apparently this Hannah girl is bang out of order because she is supposed to be seeing some guy called Steve. Steve wasn’t at the party because he wasn’t invited. Hannah evidently told him that she was just going out with a couple of mates but everyone knows that she’s a complete slag. The general consensus is that she has had a crush on Grant for some time and has been trying to break them up.

I think that was basically the gist. It was certainly more information than I needed – or even wanted - whilst waiting for the rather large girl behind the counter to take my lunch order while she blabbed at the top of her voice to her pig-faced friend who really shouldn’t be allowed to wear a skirt that short. The overhang on her belly put me off having my usual post-lunch muffin because the resemblance was so uncanny.

Please don’t get me wrong; I don’t mind listening to my friends if they have a problem. I’ll always try and be there for them. However, listening to complete strangers bang on about how tragic their life is, is something I really couldn’t care less about. Especially when they are private matters concerning other complete strangers who aren’t even in the same room. It’s not like these are even real problems.

When I was at college and I got off with some tramp I met in a bar, it was common practice to have forgotten their name in the morning and accidentally misplace their number. It was never a problem; it was a safety measure. It was only ever a problem if you were unfortunate enough to bump into them again.

Nowadays I have genuine problems involving real world adult subjects like important business decisions, cash flow issues, bills, mortgage payments, idiotic customers I’m not allowed to kill because they unfortunately pay my wage… These are problems.

Some people feel the need to share all their life problems. Some people will share whatever is on their mind with the nearest person – whether they know them or not. A few years ago when I was a member of my local gym I got talking to a very short bloke. I started the conversation in the usual Essex way by saying “alright mate, how’s it going?” which is simply used in the same was as “hello”. The bog-standard answer is something like “yeah not bad” before walking away.

However, this chap decided to share his entire life story with me. Within the space of 2 minutes I had learned everything about him from his relationship difficulties to the fact that his job wasn’t going well and he was thinking of taking on a lodger and a second part-time job to make ends meet. He had 2 sisters and one of them was married. He used to live in London but moved to Essex because he didn’t like big cities. He tried being a vegetarian once but enjoyed his bacon sandwiches too much. He had a slightly dodgy left knee due to an old football injury. His bank account number was 00435914 and his sort code was 11-09-34.

Why he felt the need to spill his guts to a complete stranger was beyond me. Perhaps he didn’t have any friends because he whinges too much. Either way, I really couldn’t care less. I certainly didn’t want a conversation about it. My initial enquiry wasn't actually through any concern over his well-being but more an English pleasantry.

Sadly, this idea of sharing everything with everybody is becoming more prevalent thanks to social networking. Facebook and Twitter are the worst offenders with this whole status updating thing. It now means there are people who are updating their status every 30 seconds informing all their friends about their every move. Seriously people, nobody else cares.

I won’t sit here and pretend that I don’t update my status. I update it fairly regularly in fact but only when I have something useful to say like informing the world about how well I did at a race. Occasionally I will just make a flippant comment or amusing observation but only when I think it is something people will find useful… or offensive.

Some of my friends follow the same logic. Sadly I have some friends who insist on posting the most pointless and boring crap that makes me wonder whether they actually have a life. One of my friends (and I use that word lightly) updates his status literally every few minutes. He is the sort of bloke who thinks he’s really popular and assumes that everyone is really interested in what he has to say. What he doesn’t realise, however, is that not many people like him and all laugh at him behind his back. How is that for sharing?

It’s when people start posting status messages informing everyone about some family drama that is occurring in their life and bleeding their hearts to the world about personal rubbish that should really be kept private that I get really annoyed. I’m not interested in knowing how pathetic someone’s life is. Keep that kind of thing to yourself.

The one that makes me laugh is when female friends post status messages complaining about getting friend requests from perverts and strange men who they don’t know. Well if you’re going to take pictures of yourself in your underwear and use it as your profile picture and claim in your profile information that you’re a lesbian, you are going to attract those kinds of people.

The new “Facebook Places” and “Google Places” take this sharing malarkey to a new height of dangerousness. Using GPS tracking you can basically tell people exactly where you are at any given time. Forgetting the worrying lack of privacy, this now means some of my friends are informing people that they are at home. Who cares? Then they’ll inform everyone that they have checked in somewhere halfway across the country. Great, thanks for letting me know you’re not at home so I know it’s safe to break in and rob you!

Then there is that self-centred and arrogant “friend” I mentioned who likes to inform people of all the “glamorous” places he is visiting because he’s a Z-list celebrity. Again, I don’t care. And you’re a moron.

Now, the irony of me sharing an opinion on people sharing is not lost on me. For this reason I will stop and just share one last piece of information with you: That friend of mine has just posted a status message informing everybody that he is going away for a week so I'm just going to pop round and post some dog poo through his letterbox.

It's good to share!