Manifestations In Laziness: REPOST

Dear R.,
Facebook informed me that your birthday is this week. We haven't spoken since the mishap with your planted pet, but I do hope you're super. I'm reposting this June blog entry about you. I could position the repost as a birthday gift, but that would make me a huge betch.


Chumma,
P.R.


If, for some reason, you've been living in the seams of my grandmother's house dress for the last five years, I have something to teach you: the world wide web is full of friends. You don't even have to know someone in reality to be friends with them on the Internet! The web is also full of pervs. Sometimes someone can be both a friend and a pervert.


Have you facebooked Paul Reubens yet?.... Why the hell not?

I'm in the habit of accepting any Facebook friend request I receive. As an old-timer, I've lived through the Great Friend Drive of 2004 (aka the founding of Facebook.com). I've experienced the mad rush to accumulate a decent number of online social network pals, the kind of desperation that leads one to friend request that weird Communist girl who brought her parents along to a naked party in college and had no qualms about her dad ogling fellow students' nubile bodies , or the ex-boyfriend who told you he preferred smaller boobs. I feel your pain, newbies.

As a direct result of my empathetic nature, I have many new friends from the Philippines, Mexico, and India.

R., my most recent international friend, uses a picture of the late Bollywood hunk Raj Kapoor for his profile picture.


This profile picture conveys the following messages to your loyal Facebook readers/friends: 1.) I can sing and dance 2.) I died in 1988 and 3.) Thomas Friedman's The Lexus and The Olive Tree is my fav book ever.

When R. friend requested me on June 4th, he included a slight neg in his accompanying message.

June 4th, 2008 7:58am

Hello Lauren

You look sexy and nice. Would you like to be friends? Your the girl on right side?

R.


At the time, this was my Facebook picture:

The girl on the right is my sister. I responded "Yes" anyhow. This is what the Internet is for: pretend.

Over the next few weeks, R. proceeded to inundate my notification box with a variety of sexual quiz invitations.

Quiz: What kind of lover are you?

Quiz: What's your favorite position?

Quiz: Are you sexually compatible with your partner?






I was beginning to regret friending R. He posted "Hello sexxy" on my wall. I deleted it immediately.

But then I noticed R.'s status messages. Rather than cliched sexual come-ons, his status messages were filled with inspiring, motivational words. It was like absorbing the wisdom of a Des'ree song without having to endure the moans of light rock saxophone:

R. is: you've got to be wise in life.

R. is: believing in true love.

R. is: love your friends. Friends 4life!

But recently R. started down a dark public announcement path:

R. is: feeeling lonely.

R. is: not understanding.

R. is: scared.

R. is feeeling so lonely.

The last reiteration of R.'s loneliness was posted late Sunday night. I was alone myself, with both my housemates out of town and no one to intercept my idle chatter. An hour before, around midnight, I had realized I was sitting on the living room floor in just my oversized "MATH MASTERS" t-shirt, clipping my toenails while intoning "Wall-EEEEEEE" to myself. That realization will make anyone reach out for late night contact.

I messaged R.


June 29, 2008 12:45am
Hey R.

I've been noticing your Facebook status messages are kind of sad lately. Hope everything is okay!

Lauren


The response:

June 30, 2008 5:17am

My chia pet died! Stay good, sexy.


And that's what friends are for.

Typo on CNN News Ticker

Obama to Muslims: "Americans are not your enemas."

And He Didn't Even Kiss Me Goodbye!

In These Blog Times

Post-colonic Oscar predictions over on TR.

In Which These Were The Real Best Moments in Film.

Inaugural Chat-Thoughts.

Evident Truths on Drinkware.

Anti-Love Drug May Be Ticket to Bliss

Breaking News Ladies! You don't have to see He's Just Not That Into You despite the mandate that is the coy hamantaschen between your legs, because pretty soon science is going to render the dating advice industry nonessential. Take that $10 and spend it on a classy cheeseburger.


"Really Ginnifer, do you notice how you always get cast as the round-faced rejectee? Maybe you should, like, stop eating carbs."

Yes is the new No! According to the New York Times article, it won't be long until we're being love raped at bars with a hormone mixture that induces feelings of attachment and bonding. Or in the whimsically-worded forecast it sounds like date rape at the hands of Benjamin Button: an unscrupulous suitor could sneak a pharmaceutical love potion into your drink!


Rule #1: If his head is cocked to the LEFT, then he's just not that into you.

The findings revolve around two hormones. Vasopressin creates urges for bonding and burrowing when injected into male prarie dogs. Oxytocin promotes much the same in female prarie dogs. I'd be willing to go out on a limb and add that the similar-sounding oxycontin makes everyone want to have sex with everything.


Rule #2: If you're not Jennifer Aniston, then he's just not that into you.

Oxytocin has also been in the news of late for being the big O behind the orgasmic birth trend. It is as it sounds-- an orgasm during birth, helpfully described by one midwife as "powerful and juicy." Having placed my black market order for O, I've already started praying to God for quintuplets.

It's heartening to see science really prioritizing its research budget during these times of economic recession. Now that coupledom will be reduced to a chemical concoction, perhaps womanity can take a second assessment of the Sex & The City franchise and discover it has little to no anthropological use.


Rule #3: If you use sex to finance your extravagant purchasing habits, he's just not that into you.

I see this coming to market in a variety of ways: Love supplements, love cologne, love lipstick, all replete with addictive hormones. Maybe we'll eventually have diaphragms that secrete vasopressin upon contact with a penis making it feel intractably drawn to the entered vagina.

And I thought my Crazy Glue-in-the-cooch method was effective.

Remember still, it is now a certifiable CNN fact that women shouldn't say "I love you" first. Instead you should devote years of your life to a monkish study of The Rules (or, apparently now you can just lap up these kinds of advice nuggests from mainstream news outlets) until he puts a ring on it, all the while waiting impatiently sans bread products for the technological advances that will allow you to trick him into loving you via chemical addiction.

And remember once upon a time you thought relationships were intuitive! Psssht.