Delusional

See that?  It's my ass.  And if I really believed it looked like that, I'd be delusional.  

Sometime, over the last year or so, during my daily exploration of what’s happening on the interwebs, I’ve noticed a trend.  I don’t know exactly how to label this trend.  But it’s definitely there.  There’s just something that has been happening on social media in the way we share our lives and the way we share what we think is meaningful.  If you want to know what’s really important to your friends, log on to Facebook or Twitter.  You’ll find out real quick what they want you to believe about them.  All of it.  How much they love their kids.  How clean their houses are.  How much sex they are having with their perfect husbands.  How great their ass looks in a skirt…Oh…Wait.  See, nobody is exempt.  I can spot a disingenuous statement from 1000 miles away.  Why?  Because my ass doesn’t ever look that good .  And I can always divert attention from it with my unhealthy yearning to have Peyton Manning’s babies.   

So, yeah.  We do this thing on the internet where we feel an insatiable desire to prove to the entire world that things are going better for us than they actually are.  Our smart kids.  Our beautiful homes.  Our FUCKING phenomenal sex lives, proof of which can be found in our brilliant children.  Great asses.  We do this.  When I first started to notice this trend, I made it my life’s purpose to do the exact opposite.  I just have this moral disdain for people who can’t own what they’re own reality.  But, if you can just take a moment to stop staring at my fine ass in my profile picture, you might notice that I do it, too.  I don’t know if anyone is exempt from this trend.  We all want to be better than we actually are, and we all, in our own twisted little way, want others to THINK we are better than we actually are. 

But the trend goes deeper than the façade we put on about our own lives.  It includes the things that other people say, that we want the world to know are important.  Social media allows us the opportunity to “share” other people’s ideas when we like them or think that they are important.  If you want the world to know you are deep and thoughtful, all you have to do is hit “like” or “share” on Facebook, and you can adopt the values of others and announce it to the entire fucking internet.  Now, please don’t get me wrong.  I want you to “like” and “share” what I have to say.  After all, I do have illusions of grandeur and dreams of eventually going viral.  Whatever that means. 

Since we are on the subject of going “viral,” I have a point with all this “liking” and “sharing” we do.  I’ve been noticing a lot of my friends sharing stories that they find inspirational.  We all know what I’m talking about.  The kind of story that was titled “28 Reasons You Know You’re a Postive person.”  Or “This Lion Walked Up to a Hippo…YOU’LL NEVER BELIEVE WHAT HAPPPENED NEXT!!!!”  Or “This Guy Just Got Divorced and Now is An Expert on Relationships so LIST EN TO HIM!!!”  And my personal favorite:  “If You Act like a Parent, You are Bullying your Child.”  Yeah.  That all happened.  On the internet.  In the last 24 hours.  And for some reason, we feel the need to share those things.  Because if somebody else says something that makes us feel bad about ourselves, we should repent by acknowledging our indiscretions and acknowledge the light.  So we share these thoughts and ideas like they are gospel. 

After a little while, I started to develop a little bit of a complex about the content of my character.  You know, because I didn’t really meet any of the 28 qualifications for being a “positive person.”  And when I watched that precious video of the lion and the hippopotamus hugging, all I could imagine was that after the video was over, the lion ate the hippo.  Or even better, the hippo rolled over on the lion and crushed every bone in its body and collapsed its windpipe.  Either way, one of them didn’t walk about from that heartwarming image of peace and harmony in the animal kingdom.  Then, I felt guilty about that, too.  How can I be so negative, I don’t even appreciate the beauty of two sworn enemies in a seemingly honest embrace?   I must be some sort of emotional deviant. 

Then.  THEN!  There was that article by this guy who is so heartbroken by his third divorce, giving advice about how to save your marriage.  Now, granted, I have to give him credit, he may not know what to do right, but he definitely knows what to do wrong.  But people ate that shit up.  Like the common sense advice he gave about treating your wife like a queen or letting her have her space and saying “I love you” every day.  Uh…Wait.  Uh…That mother fucker is making MILLIONS with his common sense advice.  Because we are eating it up.  We don’t  need the advice of the  triple crown of divorcees.  It’s just simple reasoning.  And, I’ll be very honest with you.  It doesn’t matter how many times a day you tell someone you love them, if they don’t love you back, it doesn’t matter.  In fact, in some settings, that makes you more of a stalker than a partner.  That advice is just as good as the woman who told you that if you act like a parent, you will ruin your children to infinity and beyond.  That one really got me. 

This parenting thing is a battle I fight every day.  Every morning, when I get up, the first thing I think about is how I’m going to approach the morning with Radley.  Do I do the same thing I always do, or do I try something different because what I do every day doesn’t seem to get the point across.  But still, every morning, I go into his room,  I hold him while he’s between the peaceful sleep and “get away from me lady” moments.  Then I tell him to brush his teeth and get dressed.  Repeatedly.  Until I would rather drink a bottle of draino than say it all again.  Then I finally lose my shit and I say “rinse your mouth out.  If you aren’t going to brush your teeth, they can fall out.”  To which he response, “NO!!!  I’m brushing!!!!”  Then, some woman I have never met before, tells me that I’m bullying my kid for trying to teach him good oral hygiene.  What the fuck, people?  Is that real?  Being a parent is not being abusive.  Unless you are an abuse parent, then that’s a different story. 

Now, I’m stepping off the soapbox.  Anyway, the point at hand, is that we “enhance” ourselves in public.  We may do it at work or with our friends.  We really want to tell the people around us that we are much closer to perfect than we actually are.  We probably say things like “should I have Thai or Sushi for dinner?”  When what we really mean is “should I have hamburger helper or DiGiorno? “ Sometimes we say things like “I love my hair girl!”  When we should say things like “I just tipped this bitch $60 so she’d make me look 10 years younger.”  When we wish a video titled “This hippo just fucked up that lion” would show up on our news feed, we “like” the other one instead.  Close enough right?  When we hear a man who did it ALL wrong in ALL of his marriages explain the secret to romance, we believe it.  When somebody who’s house we have never walked into tells us not to psychologically damage our children with our inconvenient parenting, we all start to question what we are doing to our children.  

I’m starting to think that all of this accessibility and sharing is making us a little delusional.  I mean, let’s be honest.  Nobody’s kids are perfect.  Nobody’s house is always clean.  NOBODY is having amazing sex all the time.  Nobody actually believes what they read on the internet, right?  We might want to, but we don’t’.  Right? 

You may now compliment my ass.  (But be reminded that I DO want to have Peyton’s babies.)  Also, “like” and “share”

-Inner Peas