I had a pet monkey. It was awesome. Sometimes. He was wild. He was a lot of responsibility. He was like... Facebook.
Like Facebook, he flung poo randomly. He masturbated all the time. All. The. Time. From my perspective, he was whittling his already tiny monkey penis down to a matchstick. His habit made me slow mine down. His furiosity seemed as if he were dashing off bits of information that others needed.
If I had a ripe basket of strawberries, he "liked" them incessantly, without regard for scarcity. He had no discipline. Imagine my monkey dancing across your Facebook page dotting it with likes. Removes the special. (I didn't put little hats or vests on him. Please, he's Facebook, not Instagram.)
You might think a monkey is a great way to stay in touch with distant relatives. Or meet new people. But I couldn't take him to parties -- not on account of the diddling -- but because he bit anyone but me. He was a snippy Facebook comment that had actual teeth. He alienated people.
His nature caused him to groom me for hours -- searching the hairs on my arm as if he were combing through hundreds of Facebook pages. His eyes glazed over. I had to perfunctorily pick back; not really interested. But I did it. Sort of like I scroll through someone I don't even don't know's cat birthday party photos adding emoticons.
You know how we can cause our life to appear "Facebook Happy"? Hold a monkey in your profile picture and bam! -- the likes pop on like paparazzi flashes. But just as we can't see each other cry-guzzling Chardonnay right from the spigot of the wine box as we read about a "friend" getting surprise roses AGAIN from her boyfriend -- you can't tell from my pic that my little monkey is clinging to me because he's scared.
Ever get in a difficult discussion with a friend on Facebook? Try putting a diaper on a monkey. It's like trying to fold a basketball. I couldn't unfriend my monkey.
But he really was like Facebook. In public, I had to keep him on a leash. I mentioned the masturbation right?