Seriously, Un-Tag

I talked about this a little in the book, but I feel like it's important to reiterate this advice: Ready? Un-Tag.

Let's say you're dating someone (newly or otherwise) who happens to go out on the town without you and play beer-pong at a bar with hot people you've never met. With me so far? And let's say one of those hot people has a digital camera because "Oh what fun! We're playing beer-pong on a Tuesday night because we're sooooo craaaaazy like that" and they take picture after picture of your boyfriend (or girlfriend) guzzling beer while a group of drunken, blonde women clap and cheer him on. But let's say that "hot digital camera girl" just can't leave it at, "Oh, how nice. I compiled some great drunken pictures tonight of other people's boyfriends and I'm gonna have a gay old time putting these pictures in my scrapbook. Someday when I'm old and gray, it will be so wonderful to look back through this scrapbook and remember it all."

No..."Hot Digital Girl" can't leave it at that. Instead she uploads all of the photos onto Facebook and TAGS his (or her) name so that when you log on and read your "status update" feed, the first thing that pops up is your boy (or girl) friend playing beer pong with hot blondes. Which in and of itself is fine. But, it would be nice if they simply hit the button "un-tag" so that I...I mean, we...didn't have to necessarily see it. (For the record, I am pro-beer-pong).

It's not just the dating world where the concept of un-tagging matters. Anytime someone from my past insists on it, I get nervous. “Jen has tagged you in a photo.” Yeah, LA Cecily doesn’t need to know that high school Cecily was in the Mime troupe. I’ve gotten tagged a lot by people from college and I have to say that LA Cecily, had she come face to face with college Cecily, would have had her arrested. Not just for the loud, incessant partying but also for the fact that she wore body suits. Tight, red body suits. Untag.

I’ve become so accustom to un-tagging that I forget I can’t just un-tag things in non-Facebook life. For example, I like indie rock bands in small venues, except in Los Angeles because people won’t stop yammering. Un-tag. Worse, there’s always some tool who yells out the name of some obscure bullshit song they want the band to play. “Play track 8 from Cold War Kids’ latest. Play that song Jon Brion did for the Blankety Blank soundtrack that you can only get on the B-side of Deathcab for Cutie’s private vinyl recordings.” We get it. You spend time at Amoeba. You want to bang Zooey Deschanel. The Silverlake Lounge is actually too mainstream for you. Ya know what, douche-hole? They’ll play what’s on their set list and you’ll like it. Un-tag. I’d also like to un-tag that guy who makes loud groaning noises in my yoga class. Yes, upward dog feels very stretchy, but this isn’t a porno sir. Un-tag.

And now...for some beer pong.

Readers, I'd love to hear from you! Feel free to email me thoughts or questions to: Shescrazyhesaliar@gmail.com