It used to be the best day of the week, coming after Always-the-Bridesmaid Thursday and before Trial Seperation Saturday. Fridays used to promise us the world. Between the 'F' and the 'Y' pulsated the allure of downing tools and happy hour cocktails; Friday was the day we could burst from the cocoon containing our dull, colourless, working day lives and emerge as our real selves — you know, the one that had plans for world domination before careers, couples and kids came along.
gratuitous & uncalled-for cuteness
But no longer. Welcome to Follow Friday, the Tenth Circle of Hell. Thanks to Twitter, Fridays have become a modern day stressor, another thing to be anxious about, like home-grown terrorism and metal fatigue in Kim Woodburn's under-wire.
It's back to picking teams all over again, only without the display of
legs and public humiliation passed off with a "Yay, being goalie's the best", and fooling nobody.
It's a truth univerally acknowledged that people are less likely to follow female Tweeters rather than male. I don't know why this is, but I suspect there's a fear from the population at large that females will tweet unrelentingly about their periods, or their kids or, or...er... soft furnishings.
My raison d'etre
Not so! These fears are unfounded. There are lots and lots of really normal women who don't rely on 'dry-weave top sheet' as a punchline. Follow them! Laugh with them! Laugh at them,
because,
no matter how we demure, how we remonstrate, every girl wants a stalker to call their own. It makes us feel special.
Twitter is the only place a girl can enjoy being followed by a stranger without the inconvenience of double locking and carrying pepper spray.
Girls, I'm sure you've spotted and scratched your head over the problematic and gaping divide between:
a) object-of-obssession wannabes, and
b) fans of DIY altar-building.
Twitter should theoretically bridge this gap, ingeniously bringing the two together like a giggly, match-making aunt.
Somebody wise once said "you've gotta be in it to win it".* But this is easier said than done, as Follow Fridays attest. The fact that Friday used to be referred to as dies Veneris — Day of Venus — simply adds poignancy to the Betty-No-Mates situation female Tweeters (Tweetettes? Tweetbabes? MsTweets?) find themselves in.
And for Betty-No-Mates read me. Yes, me. I'm friendly, relatively house-trained and as El Hombre keeps reminding me, cheap. Yet a tumbleweed bounces forlornly across the desert of my Tweetscape...
So I'm taking matters into my own hands. Today, on a Thursday, I'm going to add one of those follow widgets to this blog. And I'm going to ask you not to follow me, but rather come along for the ride.
For good times, laughter, fun nights in, for friendship and possibly more... I look forward to meeting you all!
xxx
* Dale Winton
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