You're in love. We get it.

Now stop gushing all over the internet about it!

Oh dear. I appear to have started some sort of Facebook feud... But hey, at least it's not another blog about banking!

Last night, after yet another one of my acquaintances came out of the woodwork and admitted that a mutual friend’s status updates of the past few weeks have been making them want to gag every time they log in, I did something I never thought I would do, and started a statement-making Facebook group. The gist of my group – “You’re in love. We get it. Now stop gushing all over the internet about it!” – is pretty much self explanatory. We’ve all seen them at one point or another; we all went “aww” the first few times, but now we just roll our eyes.

You know who you are, and you know you do it. I’m sure none of your friends or family begrudges you any happiness, and we are all, sincerely and honestly, really glad you’ve found that special someone. But PLEASE stop spewing that ‘love’ all over our homepages! No one is trying to be a killjoy, but we really don’t care if your girlfriend is “the sweetest thing since cotton candy” or that your boyfriend “makes cute little squeaking noises when he’s dreaming”. We especially don’t want to see another ‘taken at arm’s length on my mobile while lying on the sofa cuddling’ profile shot. You’re giving us all diabetes.

Anyone who agrees with the above statement is more than welcome to join my group. But what is really interesting is that, less than 12 hours later, a counter-statement-making group appeared. Now, I won’t give them any free publicity by naming them, but they (all, thus far, five of them) feel that if we don’t like it, we can just ignore it. Well, yes, fair point, but we can’t really, can we? Facebook, marvel and hindrance both that it is, is designed to throw such things up at us, to keep us informed and let us know what is going on in the world. Just as the creator of that group saw mine and responded to it, so I see your statues and “I miss my wuvvly boyfrwiend vewwy vewwy much” fan pages on a daily basis, and I respond to them - by wrinkling my nose in disdain. Yes, I could block you, but that’s not very friendly now is it?

And, for the record, I’m not talking about the odd, one off, “So and so had a good day out with their other half” kind of statuses. Even I put my hands up and admit to being guilty of those. Nor am I talking about putting that you are in a relationship with someone on Facebook (so long as your status doesn’t switch and change like a yoyo...). I am talking about the ‘too much information’, mushy, twee, over the top and constant sort of spew that some people are capable of. No one wants to see that, guys and gals, except maybe the one person you’re referring to. (And they invented the private message function on Facebook for a reason you know!)

This blog entry is also going in Pugwash Isse 36, but I thought I'd share it with you lot first. We’d love to know what you all think about this. Should the love be shared, anywhere and everywhere, regardless of how nauseating it may be? Is social network gushing the new level of unacceptable PDA? Should I be writing an essay right now instead of wasting time making statements on Facebook? (Perhaps (not); I would argue so; and yes, yes, I really should!) But let me know. Join my group (or the other one, if you absolutely must) – but better yet, drop us a line: comment@upsu.net