The book of faces and the human condition

     As I've looked around at the posts my friends make of facebook, I can't help but wonder what goes on with in their head. I have seen them meet somebody, fall in love, fall apart, and then repeat the cycle. I have one friend who is either single or engaged depending on which month it is. I have another friend who had her heart broken, pleads for a break from the pain, and then posts about some great guy she met before going back into the valley of the shadow of death. I suppose if I were 20 and hot, my phone would ring a lot more too, but I'm probably getting off point. Another friend has a boyfriend but has slowly erased his presence from her page while simultaneously posting motivational speeches or poems about loss and heartache.
     I also wonder if these people are truly happy or just crying out for help. I've often been tempted to try an experiment where I post that I've met somebody new and life is oh so cheery. The next day I post that I've started drinking heavily. Finally, on the third day, I post that I'm shooting heroin. It would be interesting to see which one got the most likes and comments. I also wonder what the results would be if I changed the order of the posts around.
     If I led off with the booze, then love and finally horse, would the comments stay the same? Would they be positive, condemning or supportive? I like to think those who really knew me would encourage me to slow down my drinking, question the authenticity of any post I make claiming to find love, and realize by the time I'm admitting to shooting horse that there's a punch line coming around the corner.
     Those who knew me from just being online would probably like the heavy drinking post, send congratulatory comments on the love post and quote Requiem For A Dream on the H post.
     It's interesting, I think, that society will accept an alcoholic, as long as they don't drink and drive. They will embrace the idea of love, despite the fact that's it's ruined more lives than organized religion, and they will condemn an intravenous drug user despite the fact that the only person he's really hurting is himself.
     Off hand, I'd say that the system needs some fixing because all three of these cases need help. I wish I had a solution to the problem but right now I'm just learning to identify the problem. If anybody has any thoughts on this, I'm interested in hearing them.