Like, Dislike, Confession, First Impression

You know what really grinds my gears?

The new Facebook trend of Like, Dislike, Confession and First Impression that everybody is doing. Just some of the responses are hilarious and so fake, and I absolutely love it. And when I say "love," I truly mean despise. Just in case the sarcasm was not strong enough.

I just enjoy how everybody loves each other on Facebook. I find the response for the "dislike" categories to be quite fake. I know that we all "dislike" how we haven't seen each other in so long, or we don't have many classes together, or anything along those lines, but allow me to redirect you to the definition of "dislike" from dictionary.com:

"to regard with displeasure, antipathy, or aversion: I dislikeworking. I dislike oysters."

Now I am going to focus on the words 'antipathy' and 'aversion.' Both of these words are negatively charged. Something you dislike leaves a bitter sentiment with the person that make you oppose the person you are referring to in your little post. Not seeing somebody does not make you oppose the person. Yes, I am commenting on the semantics of the whole ordeal, but that's not even the strength of my argument.

The part that really grinds my gears is the desire for a good ego stroke on both ends. For the delivering side, the person wants to feel good about himself or herself that he or she is such a nice person that would not say a bad word to anybody, when in reality there is something worth disliking. Society is too PC, so even though it says "I will be honest and say what I dislike," the truth is too often never revealed, because we do not like to cause conflict. On the other end, the receiving end wants to feel better, so when they see "dislike: don't hang out enough," or anything similar, it's so great and happy that there is nothing the other person dislikes about him or her. So everybody is happy, yay!

But that defeats the purpose.

Why do we participate in such Facebook activities? Why do we lie through our teeth, keyboard, monitor, and in text? Everybody has a flaw, that makes us human. If there is something that one dislikes, then I feel that it should be brought up with a friend. But why must it be brought up over Facebook? Why must there be a public forum on how we all miss each other, when I will say that that is not the reason why we dislike many people? This is something that does not require an audience to complete. The only reason this is around is for us to indulge in how much we think people like us. I am fully aware that people do not like me, and I would not want for people to lie to me and say, "Oh, I dislike nothing about you," or "I dislike how I haven't seen you in two hours," or anything of the sort. This is true desensitized America, and we are so afraid to anger our friends.

I agree with that.

So why must we have the "dislike" category is everyone is going to either lie or place a careful euphemism that doesn't offend? Why can't it just be "Like, confession, and first impression"? That doesn't seem bad, right?

I guess not. Let's just offend people by lying to them and saying that they have no flaws.

And that is what really grinds my gears.

Cameron