As my loyal readers (hahahaha) know, I wrote last week about my hilariously precious observations concerning this social media ‘experiment’ known to us as the outrageously addictive Facebook. Apparently, I was not finished, and am prepared to enlighten you and tickle your humerus bone once again. And I’ve decided to use a Harry Potter relation this time.

As anyone who has read the wonderful Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows knows, horcruxes are magical items into which a madman who wants to live forever can inter all or part of his soul. Doing so is considered, even by witches and wizards, about the most evil and damning thing one can do. But this is Voldemort we’re talking about, so … evil is expected.

During the time that Harry, Hermione and Ron scampered about the English countryside with one of Voldy’s horcruxes around their necks, they discovered something very interesting about horcruxes. They radiate evil, and can enhance a person’s negativity to dangerous levels. The more time spent in close proximity of a horcrux, the more one’s more base characteristics or one’s darker thoughts come to the surface and find their way from being hidden thoughts or closely guarded secrets to outward expressions of bile or hateful actions based on one’s negativity being perverted.

In other words, your deepest paranoias, your most negative thoughts on a person or subject, your immediate reaction to something that is bothering you… explodes to the surface and can cause problems in the physical world. This expression of thought and negativity can adversely affect the relationship with whom one is closest. Clearly, it is better to not be in the vicinity of a horcrux, lest your true opinion of your best bud’s shirt be known to him – and in a most unimistakable, audible and regrettable way.

Which, of course, brings me to Facebook. Quite frankly, I’ve found – yours truly included – that if you were kind of annoying in person, the annoyance quotient rises at a pretty high rate. And once the irritation factor is established, it can only go up.

I’ve had to unsubsrcribe from a couple of feeds on Facebook for a variety of reasons, but the main common thread was that there was some element of the feed that got under my skin. It started small, but would grow bigger as more and more updates came in. After a while, all it would take for me to get needlessly upset was to see this person’s status update. Even if it was a totally innocuous update, it annoyed me.

At first, I would just deal with it, thinking that I was being immature, and my getting that upset about something so silly was just stupid. And it was. The more sensible thing to do would have been to unsubscribe. Yet still, I resisted. And then I realized that I was not as mature as I was saying I was. That’s when the unsubscribing began. And it was great. Since that first time, I’ve added some other folks to my unsubscribe list, and I’ve gotta tell ya – most times, it’s a lot less irritating to be a part of Facebook now.

Of course, it would be unsporting of me to leave out the part that each and every one of the folks I blocked are perfectly fine people when I see them in the flesh. I can have a conversation and never feel even the slightest trace of aggravation. I just don’t like their Facebook persona. And I’m sure that there are more than a few people who feel the same about me. Sometimes I can’t stand my Facebook persona.