My Facebook newsfeed and I have a tenuous relationship. When it alerts me to a friend’s favorite story in today’s New York Times or lets me know they safely escaped the tsunamis in Hawaii, I like my newsfeed. But just as often, facebook tells me things I’d rather not hear…

1. I was 15 pounds heavier in college, and looked it.

There are only 429 photos of me on facebook, and thankfully very few from my early college days, but the ones that are there…well, forget “freshman 15,” more like “freshman kiloton.” Blame one too many sports-related injuries and one too many late-night frozen yogurt study breaks. To de-tag or not to de-tag?

2. 4 people I went to high school with are already married.

It’s not like getting married is any measure of success or that I’m still competitive with people I haven’t spoken to in 7 years or anything…

3. The guy I’m in love with is “now in a relationship”…with a girl who isn’t me.

I probably should have de-friended him when we decided to go our separate ways, but then I would have lost stalking privileges. Seeing this on my newsfeed made me throw up a little… and then sign-up for OkCupid.

4. Those twats whose papers I used to edit are in PhD programs and on fellowship.

When I was an MA student, I tutored a number of underclassmen in art history and edited their grad school applications. They couldn’t tell the difference between a brick and an original idea if their lives depended on it. Their status updates announced they had been accepted into prestigious PhD programs… the same programs that rejected me. Ironic, no?

5. My teenage cousin has a more active sex life than I do.

Every month, she has a new boyfriend. Every day she posts a new album of webcam photos featuring her making out with her latest beau. Maybe if I were a better older cousin, I’d try to reign her in, teach her about modesty, but more often I feel like asking her, “so, what’s your secret?”