Macro Assignment 1: A Tale of Two Facebooks

A Tale of Two Facebook Pages

Characteristics	Jimmy O’ Hara	Samantha Paddington
College	Gateway Community College	Smith College
High School	New Haven High	New Haven High
Job	Part time at Dunkin Donuts
Religious Views	Irish Catholic and proud of it!	Presbyterian
Political Views	Independent	Very Liberal
Favorite Quotes	If you really want to hear about it, the first thing you'll probably want to know is where I was born and what my lousy childhood was like, and how my parents were occupied and all before they had me, and all that David Copperfield kind of crap, but I don't feel like going into it, if you want to know the truth. The Catcher in the Rye Holden Caulfield in Chapter 1, opening words of book	You are mistaken, Mr. Darcy, if you suppose that the mode of your declaration affected me in any other way, than as it spared me the concern which I might have felt in refusing you, had you behaved in a more gentleman-like manner. Pride and Prejudice Elizabeth to Darcy after he accuses her of only refusing his hand in marriage because of the way he proposed, Chapter 35.
People Who Inspire Me	Abe Lincoln, Paul McCartney	Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte
Music	Beatles, Dave Matthews, Anything but Disco	Beatles, Taylor Swift, Country
Books	Harry Potter, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy	Harry Potter, Anything by Jane Austen or the Bronte Sisters and the Outlander Series
Movies	Hangover, Avatar, Wedding Crashers	The Notebook, Anything with Colin Firth
T.V.	Saturday Night Live, South Park, Raising Hope	Masterpiece Theater Classics, Switched at Birth, Raising Hope
Activities/Interests	Red Sox	Reading, Writing, My Boyfriend
About You	Hi. I am Jimmy. I kind of have a crazy family life. I love my basset hound, Snoopy.	Hi. I am Sam. I am studying English and I have two Cavalier King Charles Spaniels named James and Lizzy.
Interested In:	Women	Men
Relationship Status	Single	In a relationship with Theodore Ross
Sex	Male	Female

It is a rainy Saturday afternoon. Jimmy O’Hara has just come home from his shift at Dunkin Donuts. He goes on his age old IBM laptop and prays that he will get connected. He has one hundred and fifty friends on Facebook, fifteen photos and doesn’t really give a damn about updating his status. He mainly reads the Facebook pages of girls he liked in high school. One of those girls is Samantha Paddington. He clicks her name under the News Feed on which she has posted some pictures of last night’s Halloween party at Yale. He stares at the screen taking in every detail of her as Scarlett O’Hara trying to imagine what she sees in her snotty boyfriend who is dressed as Rhett Butler. Picture after picture has her dancing and kissing him. Jimmy knows her boyfriend, Theodore Ross is a jerk since the time they were boys playing baseball on the same team. Theodore was always a Yankees fan. 

Why do I do this to myself? God help me. I am torturing myself. Theodore is a jerk, but what do I have to offer her? If I didn’t see her on Facebook, I’d never see her.

He takes one last scroll around her Facebook page and then logs off, for he never comments on anything, never even updates his status. He doesn’t have anything to say. He thinks life is crap right now.

Samantha Paddington wakes up with a hangover.  It is almost noon. She has seven text messages on her iPhone. Three are from Theodore. She ignores them and goes down the grand staircase of her childhood home in the East Rock neighborhood of New Haven. As she sips her coffee she thinks about what a jerk Theodore was last night. She turns on her iPad and goes on the Facebook app. She finds three more messages from Theodore. She sees the pictures that her friends have posted from the costume ball last night. 

Oh God. In my drunken state, last night was fun until Theodore went off with that Yaleie dressed up like a sexy milkmaid. We do look good together but I told him once before if he ever dances with another girl that doesn’t meet my standards, I was going to break up with him. I am going to keep that vow.  

Samantha clicks on “Edit my Profile.”  Under the family and friends tab she changes her relationship status from “In a relationship” to “widowed.” She is feeling tragically dramatic today. Within five minutes she had gotten three “likes” and four comments. Some were like, “oh, I am sorry,” while others said, “finally you dumped him. good for you.”

“Thanks for the support,” she writes. Then her phone rings. It is not often that someone actually calls her.  A picture of Theodore and her pops up on her iPhone. Oh no, she thinks to herself. He’s calling me? She lets it ring until the voice mail picks up. Without listening to the message, she knows what he is going to say, she texts him.

I gave you one more chance. I am done with you Ted.

She feels liberated. She decides to treat herself by going to the new Apple Store in downtown New Haven. She wants to check it out and buy a present for her sister. She heads up stairs to get dressed. On her MacBook Air, her facebook page is open. Something catches her eye. Jimmy O’Hara “liked” her new relationship status. Samantha smiles. She hadn’t thought of Jimmy O’Hara since their graduation from hight school. She clicks on his name and a picture of him and his basset hound, Snoopy comes up as his profile picture.  She clicks on “pictures” and notices that there are only fifteen. Most are of him and his dog at different stages of his dog’s life.  There is one of him and his family, but he doesn’t look like any of them. They all have blond hair and blue eyes. She wonders about that. She wonders if he was Switched at Birth which is one of her favorite t.v. shows. She remembers his great smile, those big brown eyes, looking so sad when she told him that she was going to the prom with Theodore.  It seems a lifetime ago.

She sees that he is still single and that he read Catcher in the Rye. She smiles when she realizes he kind of looks like Jimmy Chase from the t.v. show “Raising Hope,” which is one of his favorite shows too.  She never realized how much they had in common. She and Theodore never had that much in common. 

How could I have ever dated someone who put under Political Views: Republican? And who could not bring himself to like Harry Potter. It was all there in black and white, right on Facebook, how incompatible they were. Samantha takes her dogs, James and Lizzy and goes to the Apple Store to buy her sister the latest iPod Mini. She drives to Edgewood Park . . .

In the meantime, Jimmy O’Hara is taking his routinely walk with Snoopy in the very same park.  He is thinking about Samantha when he rounds the corner.  For some reason he is not surprised to see her . . .

Samantha is sitting at the edge of the park pond crying. She has gotten so many texts about her break up with Theodore.  Everyone thought they were the perfect couple and for a while she bought into the constant feedback she got on Facebook.  Friends would comment on her pictures, and she would comment on theirs.  It was like a competition. “Look at me. Look at how happy I am. Look at how cute we are together.” It was all a dream and a fairytale played out on a social network full of “friends” she barely even knew. 

Suddenly, Lizzy starts barking and from around the bend comes a huge basset hound.  The dogs get all tangled up and Samantha realizes she is going to have to deal with the dog’s owner.  She gets up when Lizzy starts to bark louder and starts running around her legs. 

“Lizzy! Stop it!” she screams at the dog. She feels herself start to fall when she says, “Oh my God, my iPhone!” From out of nowhere come a pair of strong hands, grabbing her around the waist. They both topple backwards onto the bench.  She looks over her shoulder to see who her knight in shining armor is.  Jimmy O’Hara. 

The following Halloween pictures of Samantha Paddington and Jimmy O’Hara appear on Facebook as Robin Hood and Maid Marian.  They both change their Facebook status to “engaged” that night.