Comphrehensive Guide to Interpreting Whiny Girls’ Facebook Posts

(Original post: August 8, 2011)

We all have that one (or two, or ten, or fifty) facebook friend(s) who never seem to post anything but lyrics to Taylor Swift songs and status posts that make little to no sense but are clearly intended to make people curious as to what they’re talking about, possibly prompting them to ask the poster. They are often very annoying as they tend to update their statuses at one to three hour intervals and the moods conveyed by their cryptic posts can change dramatically with each new post. There are many names for these sorts of people (usually females, but males have been known to display such behavior as well), but we’ll just call them attention whores.

The goal of these statuses, as previously mentioned, it to catch peoples’ interest just enough to make them ask what’s going on, thus giving the aptly-named attention whores the attention they’re looking for. Unfortunately, due to their lack of understanding of whiny girl lingo, many people, often guys, fall right into this trap and do end up gratifying the attention whore, though usually receiving another vague or cryptic reply that causes a rather stupid conversation to occur. I don’t know about you, but I’m getting tired of seeing 500 comment exchanges that begin like this:

(Original Post) Girl: omg life is kicking my butt these days. if only you knew, if only you cared…

Clueless male: whats wrong?

Girl: nothing

Clueless male: u sound pretty upset to me

Girl: im fine!

Guy: no, ur not

Girl: fine, whatever. ill tell you in pm

Guy: well if it helps, I think ur beautiful(:

Girl: awhhh really?(:

… Followed by another 92378436245 comments of annoying flirting and probably a chick fight or two along the way.

It came to me a couple days ago that maybe if guys could figure out what was wrong with the girl without needing to ask further questions, many awkward and annoying conversations could be avoided and attention whores would have to find a new hobby. Everyone wins! (Except the attention whores.) So without further ado…

The Comprehensive Guide to Interpreting Whiny Girls’ Facebook Posts

We will begin with a basic introduction to whiny girl vocabulary. People who post cryptic statuses usually fall into the stereotype of girls who think love is rainbows and perfection, all guys love them, and Taylor Swift actually has talent. Thankfully, this means they all abuse the same words in the same ways, making such a list very easy to write. Their statuses are very likely to contain at least one of the following words, and that alone should give you an idea of what effect they were going for.

• Love – a crush that lasts for more than 24 hours
• True love – a relationship that lasts more than 24 hours
• Pain/suffering/agony - the result of any situation that doesn’t go their way
• Miserable – similar to the above, only refers to the fact that they feel out of control of their pathetic little world since the aforementioned situation didn’t go the way they wanted it to
• Pathetic (as applied to other people) – usually someone else who is after the guy they’re interested in, or just girls they feel to be inferior in some way
• Jerk - anyone who disagrees with them
• Understand (as in “you just don’t understand!”) – agree with their opinion
• Trust – the secure knowledge that other people won’t share their embarrassing, awkward, and/or downright hilarious stories with the public. Very rare and easily broken in high school, apparently.
• Heartbreak – Like pain, suffering, and agony, but in a situation that involves at least one guy
• Thinking (about someone) – Freakishly obsessing over (someone)
• Talking – (from my observations) Can mean anything from “in the beginning stages of a relationship with” to “having a physical relationship with”
• You/him – Often used in the sense of addressing the guy that has done them wrong in the vain hope that he’ll read the post, think “she must be talking about me!”, run through the pouring rain to see her right away, and propose to her. Rarely has much of an effect.
• Beautiful/stunning/gorgeous (usually applied to someone other than herself) – they’re bored and desperately need someone (or a lot of people) to tell them how attractive they are
• (: – the backwards smiley face. It’s like the forwards smiley face in that it suggests happiness, but I guess people think it looks cuter and more flirty when put backwards. This is a dead giveaway that the status is about a guy. If it’s a winky smiley face, just cringe and don’t think too much about what it means.

Now that we’ve gotten through that, here is a sample list of statuses posted by whiny girls, along with an explanation of what they’re probably talking about. These have been generously provided by various attention whores that I’ve stayed facebook friends with solely to read their crap for my own entertainment, though they have been edited slightly from their original form to save the original posters the embarrassment of being featured in a rant about attention whores (and to keep them from posting cryptic statuses about how stupid I am).

“I change my mind…”

While the actual issue is unclear, the obvious aim is to get people to ask what they’re changing their mind about. My guess is which guy they’re going to pursue, because if it was what shirt they were going to wear, it wouldn’t warrant a status. If you’re a guy and you’ve been talking to this girl, you should probably be concerned. And ditch her.

“I hate it when people bring things up not knowing how it makes me feel…”

Someone mentioned this girl’s ex-boyfriend or a guy she used to be interested in. It was probably a totally innocent comment that may have not even been directed at the girl herself, but now she’s all “miserable” and thinks her friends list gives a crap.

“[insignificant activity], [insignificant activity], amazing kisses, and [insignificant activity](;”

The winky smiley face is an obvious indication that the only point of a status like this is the “juicy” part in the middle about kissing, hugging, or doing whatever else with someone. It’s supposed to make you wonder who they’re doing this with and what else they’ve done with them. Because, y’know, being a skank is cool! 

“I’m done with your crap!”

Some guy didn’t do what she wanted and now she’s annoyed. Doesn’t matter who… people close to her can probably guess, and if you’re genuinely worried about her, message her.

“Why doesn’t anyone understand me?”

Something didn’t go the way this girl planned, and of course, it’s their fault, not hers.

“If only you understood my pain, my suffering, my past…”

Something didn’t go this girl’s way (and it was most likely her fault), and apparently her “traumatic” past (that most likely wasn’t actually traumatic, or she wouldn’t be obviously alluding to it in a status) makes her most likely immature and dumb actions excusable.

“Nobody likes me. I’m so ugly. “

This is a blatant cry for attention. Usually posted by fairly “popular” and attractive people, they just want everyone else to confirm that they are indeed popular and attractive because it makes them feel special. It’s just like when they post it on pictures where they’re wearing almost no clothing and making some kind of “sexy” face and want people to compliment them. Don’t do it.

“Love is so complicated!”

Any girl who uses the word “love” in more than one status per month or so has no idea what love is, how complicated it is, and has never been in it. Period dot the end. This girl probably got rejected by some guy she barely knew and felt the need to share her pain with the world, despite the fact that she has no idea what she’s talking about.

“Great day.(;

Someone really wants us to think she, ahem, “got lucky”. Most likely, she didn’t. Not sure why anyone would post something like this regardless of whether or not it’s true.

“Your cute(;”

-facepalm- I hate these people the most. It’s like she really thinks the guy she’s talking about is going to magically know she means him, fight other guys for her, and ask her out in the pouring rain or whatever the heck girls think is romantic now. It usually results in a 9001 comment war about who she was talking about, often with fights. They also can’t spell “you’re” right to save their lives. Ever.

“You better watch out, I’m gonna get revenge…”

Ooh, some girl probably looked at your boyfriend for three whole seconds without your permission. Yeah, I’m really scared if you had to post a fake threat on facebook.

And last but not least, ignore all instances of song lyrics, poems, or quotes that are obviously about love or the lack thereof. They’re just different ways of phrasing the above. If you’re unsure about the meaning from the line or two they posted, look up the whole song, which should be very self-explanatory, especially if Taylor Swift crapped it out.

Once you’ve studied that very closely, here’s a step-by-step thought process for guys to follow when they come across a cryptic whiny girl status.

1. “Do I know this person very well?” If answer is no, then why do you have them added on facebook in the first place? Delete them, you friend whore. If yes, proceed.
2. “Am I relatively close friends with this person and do they care about my opinion at all?” If no, then ignore the stupid status and get on with your life. If yes, consider asking them what’s wrong in a private message.
3. “Do I have a crush on them?” If answer is no, then just ignore this stupid status and get on with your life. If yes, fine, keep reading, but don’t use this as a lame opportunity to try to flirt with them. Please. It’s sickening.
4. “Is she talking about me?” If no/probably not, just move on. It’s not worth your time. If there’s a legitimate possibility it’s about you (either you’re dating her or you know she’s interested in you and you might’ve wronged her in some way), ask her about it in a private message if you wish, but not on the status itself.
5. “Do I give a crap?” If it could be about you but you honestly don’t care, good! Move on and find a girl who keeps her personal life off of facebook and doesn’t have to whore for attention through status updates. If yes, you need to find a new hobby, dude.

Last but not least, a desperate plea to all females who insist on posting this garbage: STOP POSTING THIS GARBAGE. If you have 200 facebook friends, an estimated 5 of them actually care about your problems or have a vested interest in the outcome. The other 195 think you’re an attention whoring idiot. If you’re having a real issue, talk about it with a coupe of trusted friends, but stop posting statuses about it all the time.

I realize that most girls, myself included, do this every once in a while. When an urge to rant hits, they can be fun. However, when you get over your anger and realize how stupid you sound, delete it. As fun as it might be to watch guys fight over who thinks you’re the most beautiful in light of your “depression” or have a bunch of friends demanding to know what’s wrong and who they need to beat up, it’s annoying to the rest of us, and honestly, it ruins your image a bit too. Find another outlet for your problems, because I don’t care, and neither do most sensible people.

While I understand that it might be almost unthinkable to stop responding to someone who seems to be in distress, it is vital that you do so. With the cooperation of everyone on facebook, I’d like to hope we can destroy attention whores once and for all by eliminating any satisfaction they might get from responses to their statuses. Don’t even troll them, as tempting as it may be. Eventually, they’ll have to find somewhere else to complain, like myspace (where you can even set a mood to make people wonder what’s wrong with you). Please pass this message along.

Together, we can make attention whores “lonely”, “sad”, and “misunderstood” more than ever by simply not wasting our time.