hi there.

why am i up at 1:37AM on a saturday night, facebook-stalking the shit out of you? no, you didn’t sleep with my boyfriend. you don’t have really great hair or a cute baby or a sex scandal that’s hilariously/sadly public.

no. you’re just a girl i met one summer. at a fancy bbq in DC, held in a CNN hotshot’s backyard. we were introduced, and you gave me a big smile and a huge southern “hello.” and we chatted politely about working for the same agency that summer and gosh, isn’t that place so damn bureaucratic, and oh man, how do you deal with keeping up with all the acronyms?! then, i’m sure one of us choreographed some half-graceful exit—let’s be real, it was probably me—and that was it.

well, no—and then you facebook friended me a week later, and i thought, what the hell, and THAT was it.

and when your name would pop up on my facebook feed, i would think, “who the shit is the random girl with the guitar?” and “who the fuck do i know who lives in tennessee?” and then i’d see the subtle tagline, “worked at embassy paris” and i’d remember how we both talked about the foreign service and oh cool, you got to intern at an embassy in paris whereas i got a consulate in middle-of-nowhere, china…

but okay, whatever. her boyfriend’s not that cute. and anyway, i’m above this pettiness, right? right. good.

then these facebook statuses began to pop up: “Just got into Harvard!” and “…and I just got accepted to the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts! It’s going to be a hard decision” and “Just got offered 1/3 scholarship to go to Harvard!” which is fine. that’s fine. i got into the grad school that i wanted, and i’m really happy with it. so why go all highschool-college-applicant psycho on this bitchass?

more status updates. about harvard harvard harvard. and about publishing a thesis. and about going to a recording studio and recording her original songs (wtf?!). and all right—i admit it, now i’m about 8 paragraphs of batshit crazy in. i get it. what’s really getting at me, you ask?

here’s what it is. it’s not just that she does cool shit. if i were jealous of all of the people around me who did cool shit, i’d probably never stop writing rambling angsty tumblr posts all day. that’s not it. it’s that she does cool shit, and then she wants to brag about it on facebook. often.

what’s the problem with that, you ask? nothing, really. girl deserves to brag a little. she does amazing shit. but here’s what gets me. you know how sometimes, when you want to tell the whole fucking world about something great that’s happened to you, but you don’t want to sound like a complete douchebag, so you cloak it in casual, joking terms like: “the boyfriend tried to surprise me with breakfast in bed, but ended up setting off the fire alarm. what am i supposed to do with him?!” (okay, i sat here and tried to think of a good example for about six minutes, and that’s the best i could come up with.) it’s the kind of thing that you read and gag. not like you would if someone wrote “I HAVE THE GREATEST FUCKING BOYFRIEND IN THE WORLD!” because what, what is that person on. you gag because here, is someone obviously pleased with what they’ve got, but trying desperately to “stay grounded” about it. no. you know what actual grounded people with the greatest fucking boyfriends in the world do? nothing. they say nothing. they don’t need to.

and that’s what irritates me about this girl. she is incredibly blessed, and she is also incredibly capable. and yeah sure, maybe i’m a little jealous (not sure that tufts program would’ve ever accepted me. oh, and michelle kwan is also in that program, just fyi). who wouldn’t be? what bothers me is her constant updates that aren’t quite direct and in-your-face enough to give you solid reasons to actively dislike her, but have this tinge of boastfulness that make you want to hit her, just slightly.

am i crazy? probably. i think i’ve realized tonight, though, that there’s something else to it, too. in the past week, she’s started her first week of classes at the amazing institution where i spent my last four years. she’s posted status updates about how our library is as beautiful as the US capitol and about how she’s sitting in what she calls “the harvard yard,” in wonderment. she’s so in awe of everything, and she’s so excited. and why shouldn’t she be? this shit is cool.

that’s when i realized: it’s me. over the last four years, i’ve gone from being that overconfident high school senior who felt invincible…to being a jaded, overprivileged harvard grad who always, always needs to be underwhelmed. what, you got into harvard law? cool—so did six kids in my house. you’re publishing a novel? whoop-de-fucking-doo. you’ve landed a high-paying banking job next year? that’s nice, what firm is it? oh…not goldman, blackstone, or jpm? hm.

i’m not impressed by anything. and no, it’s not because i think i’m so fucking great either. i wasn’t that impressed by my big fat historic and expensive undergraduate education—what? it’s just a school—and i didn’t feel like my two summers at that agency were all that impressive (a monkey could put on a suit and sit at a desk all day) and i don’t even feel all that proud of getting into grad school. i mean, sure, i’m looking forward to studying in london next year, and yeah, i guess i worked hard to get in, but look, it’s not like it’s that much of a big deal, right? it’s just, you know, like, another year of school.

seriously? this is who i am now? i can’t even fess up to being sort of proud of what i’ve got? this isn’t being grounded. this is just being a perpetual douchebag. from my four years of being surrounded by awe-inspiring people, the important lesson wasn’t to be humble, always. no, the important lesson was to downplay everything, to take everything in stride. nothing is ever that impressive; there’s alway someone else doing something even more amazing, and you bet he/she is twice as down-to-earth as you are. everything is just fine, and nothing’s really that big of a deal.

sorry—back to you, girl who makes me gag. because this was about you, wasn’t it? even though i got my second-person pronouns mixed around a little? right. it’s about you. you and the things that you are so proud of. congratulations on everything you’ve done. thank you for sharing it all with me, one snarky facebook update at a time.

see, you still kind of suck, but more than anything, you make me realize that i suck.