“My best friend has always been a ‘Hyacinth Bucket’ type; a sweetheart of a girl, but she likes to keep up appearances. If an acquaintance meets her and asks how she is doing, she will never tell you how it really is.
Very strange
You will not hear that her eldest son is not doing very well at school and that her husband only works. She will never let you know that she has been looking around for another job for three years and that she has bad contact with her brother. I understand that somehow; you don’t necessarily have to show the back of your tongue to a relative unknown.
But she could really rejoice. Then we had just had a heated conversation – because she is honest with me – and then a few minutes later she announced to someone in the street that she is all doing so well. That felt really weird.
Not without captions
Hair keeping up appearances I saw every now and then, but because of Facebook I am now confronted with it on a daily basis. She posts something every day where she shouts it from the rooftops. It bothers me immensely.
She doesn’t post pictures of her children without captions like ‘love of my life‘, ‘most beautiful girl in the world‘ or ‘my princess‘, when I know she would prefer to stick her children’s dragons behind the wallpaper most of the time.
Pictures that are too stylized
She also always makes slightly too stylized pictures. When you see her house on Facebook, you would think she has it perfectly done. But when you see her home in person, you know better.
It’s always a mess and there’s a lot of deferred maintenance due to her guy’s slack attitude. It doesn’t matter, but then don’t pretend you’re having such a great time!
a selfie
When I’m out with her, she doesn’t even know how quickly to check in at the restaurant where we’re sitting. As soon as we get our hands on a glass of wine, she sits down next to me and has to take a selfie. I think it’s horrible.
She throws a few filters over it (I have to admit I always look gorgeous!) and before we even take our first sip, the world knows we’re having so much fun. I once told her that she is starting to look a bit like Famke Louise.
In real life
But that message is not getting through. She always uses those filters for herself, by the way. My husband said it recently: ‘You are almost shocked when you meet her in real life!’
It’s getting more and more disgusting to me how she presents herself online. Not a day goes by that she doesn’t post! It’s even so bad that I sometimes turn her off. Then I block her messages. I don’t want her to bother me so much that it hinders our friendship.
jubilant stories
I could of course tell her; that’s what my husband advises me when he hears me complain again. But it’s a free world and she can of course post whatever she wants to post.
I rarely post on Facebook myself, but try in my posts always stay as close to myself as possible. So I will also report it calmly if things don’t go so well. You don’t just have to post the jubilant stories.
Offline
The same goes for holidays. Why spam your friends every day for two weeks with sunny vacation photos and ultimate happy hashtags? So she does. I always think of the people who can’t go on holiday, who also read that. It is so ‘for sale’ with what you have. I really hate it. No, offline we have a lot of fun together, but she doesn’t suit me at all online.”