Women on Facebook are too bitchy even for me

In the heyday of the Hollywood studio system, Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM (‘More stars than there are in the heavens’) was rumoured to have had a very strange chart on his wall. This graph, allegedly, kept a record of the menstrual cycles of the studio’s leading ladies: Ava Gardner, Lana Turner, Grace Kelly and the rest. By consulting it, directors and cameramen knew when their precious cargo might be feeling a mite tearful and would ruin her make-up if spoken to sharply, or when her skin might not be in the best condition for a big close-up.

Some mornings when I come back from my husband’s place, sit down at my computer and eagerly turn to Facebook, I wonder if I too should nip down to the office supply shop and buy a bunch of graph paper — not in order to track the state of the silken skin of sirens (nice work if you can get it) but rather to help keep me up to speed vis à vis the screaming sirens of Facebook feuds, as they reverse over speed-bumps with their horns on, over and over, just like a gaggle of selfie-snapping monkeys with miniature cymbals. I love a good scrap as much as the next media whore, but sometimes even I feel myself wilting in weary disbelief when I see what’s been kicking off overnight.

Don’t get me wrong — I love Facebook. Just when I’m convinced that the internet is the main domain of a gang of mass escapees from Broadmoor, the amazingly agile minds of my Facebook friends shimmy by and like a bedazzled dancing bear I stumble after them. My best barbs are long-blunted in booze and self-satisfaction — but being with these glittering ghosts is like being young again, without the boring or embarrassing bits.