You wake up. You reach over to your bedside table, grab your ringing phone and click the dismiss button to stop the alarm. Phone still in hand, you rub your left eye, but leave the right one open and peek at the device in your palm. Eleven new emails and four texts. You check them sleepily–texts from your mom, your sister and two from your best friend. Then move on to the emails–one from work, a few from school, some announcing sales at your favorite stores and lastly, a notification that John Smith wants to be your friend on Facebook. John Smith? Who is that?

Getting out of bed, you plop down in front of your computer and pull up the social networking site. You check out John Smith, but still don’t know who he is. Then you realize he has sent you a message. “Hey, we met at a bar the other night. It wasn’t anything big, we just introduced ourselves. How are you?” You still don’t really remember him, but you accept the friend request anyway. Then you go back to your news feed, where you see that your friend in Texas has put up new pictures. Clicking through them, you realize you haven’t talked to her in almost two years, but still know most of what’s going on in her life.

So much of our lives has been infiltrated by virtuality and technology that it’s rare that we have more actual face time in a day than virtual. We text, BBM, Facebook chat, Gchat, Skype, iChat and tweet far more often than we take the time to meet up face to face, and we don’t have a problem with that. (In fact, I just stopped and typed out a text in the middle of writing that sentence.) Often we have online friends that we have never met outside of the digital world–something that not long ago may have been considered a little strange, but has recently become a social norm. The number of online dating sites grows almost daily, and people find shared interests on all different kinds of blogs–from fashion to comics to music. But just because we like to look at the same website as someone, does that mean we should be friends?

Many people believe that virtual relationships are fake and watered down, and in a lot of instances that is true. Think about it–how much do you really know about all of your Facebook friends? Are the majority of them even your friends at all? Are they even real people? Or just fakes created by a lonely woman in the middle of nowhere like in that Catfish movie?

We may feel like we know people that we meet online because we spend such a huge portion of our lives in front of our computer screens, but who we are online can be totally different from who we are in real life. The internet provides a safety filter through which we feel we can be more outgoing, wittier and all around more impressive than we may be when approached on the street. Imagine that you start following someone on Twitter because every single one of their tweets makes you almost pee your pants, but you decide to meet them in person and discover they look a little bit like Chewbacca with even less social skills. Or, there’s always the chance he looks like Bradley Cooper and is just as funny as his 140-character one-liners. Either way, meeting people on the internet is a gamble, no matter how well you think you know them. And we’re always crossing our fingers for a jackpot.

So is it bad that so much of our personal lives and relationships are online? Maybe. But it doesn’t seem to be a trend that will go away soon.

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Dear Former Facebook Friend,

How is everything? I don’t know anything about your life anymore because I’m not getting constant updates on my phone and computer. We can still be friends in real life though!

I’m sorry I had to cut you out of my friends list. I think it’s really awesome that even though you had an exam at 7:30 this morning, you still went out last night and had the time of your life (I assume from the pictures you posted). I stayed in studying for the exam all night, and I just can’t bear to see your status next week telling the whole internet you got an A+ when I got a C. Hearing how smart you are and how much of a social life you have makes me want to drop out of school and be a telephone operator.

I’m also really glad that you have a super hot boyfriend and an amazing family who sends you care packages filled with money and candy every week (It’s so cool that you can eat all that candy and be a size 00!), but sometimes reading about all of your happiness makes me want drown the both of us.  So for both of our safety, I just had to de-friend you.

I bet your family is so proud that you’re only a sophomore and you already have a job lined up at a Fortune 500 company after graduation. That’s really cool! My parents haven’t changed my old room into an office yet because they know I’ll probably be moving back in after graduation. So I had to delete you before next summer when I’m in my old room listening to the Spice Girls, and you’re in a big city changing your work info every week because you just keep getting promoted.

I would wish you well, but it seems like you’re already doing amazing!

Sincerely,

Jessica

(image source: Shutterstock / Jason Stitt)

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When the almighty Facebook was first created, it was intended to be a network devoted to fostering connections with future classmates (and friends) at your future school. Fast forward a few years and Facebook is a melting pot for parents, preteens, companies, celebrities and anything else you can imagine Facebook connecting you to.

Remember when MySpace was cool?  Well, as is often said around the office: MySpace is the poor man’s Facebook. Or if that doesn’t work for you, how about this: MySpace is the pedophile’s Facebook. You might prefer one to the other but both get an A for being equally acceptable judgments. Although MySpace might take the cake for the invention of the duck-beak, kissy-face photos that girls just love to post as their default.

Moral of the story: When Facebook hit the scene, America nixed MySpace quicker than Ronnie could pass on Sammi.

So, what’s next? Since the Facebook takeover was so powerful, who’s going to create the next bigger, better social networking site that sends Facebook to Internet purgatory?

We did a little research and came up with five of the best competitors that’ll have it out with Facebook in the battle for heavy weight champion of the dotcom world.

1. College Only: this social media network hopes to rekindle the original Facebook format (only with a new name and new, genius masterminds) by making its site available to college kids and college kids only. No, mom and your future employers won’t be able to scroll through your photos and find a reason not to hire you.  The only catch is that you have to have a valid university email address.

2. Path: This dotcom draws a path to connect you to your intimate friends and loved ones. You can stay in contact with the people that you choose and post photos that keep your fellow Path-ers up to date on what you’re up to. The site itself restricts you to 50 followers and you only post photos, drastically changing the dynamic of “social” networking. It’s a lot like hieroglyphics… except the 2011 version.

3. Like A Little: I suppose this one takes the stalker out of Facebook stalker. This networking site revolves around the theory that users like to flirt with each other. Well, duh. Like A Little emulated the Facebook messages format so that their users can send personalized messages to all their Internet cuties. Geared directly toward college students, you can search for hotties on your campus or through other schools. Like A Little is definitely the Shy-Guy’s college go to, but will FB beat them to the “Like A LOT” button?

4. Diaspora: Let me introduce Facebook’s biggest competitor, Diaspora. This site’s mantra is “you own your own stuff,” which caught them a lot of airtime after Facebook changed its privacy settings in 2010. The site looks and feels very much like Google+ but it is a more user-controlled environment. Apparently, it’s second in the limelight after Facebook. So in case America’s favorite social network crashes, now you know where to update your status next.

5. Collegiate Nation: Similarly to College Only, Collegiate Nation’s platform is devoted to bringing privacy back to the social networking world. The three hottest components of this website are that there is total privacy (you need to have an @edu email address in order to gain access), no advertisements and user control. So basically, everything you just read about in the four previous competitors Collegiate Nation does all in one place.

While each of these college-based networks bring their own talents to the table, none of them share the global acclaim that Facebook has generated. Since none of these sites have tickled our fancy quite like FB, we’re just going to stick with what works, sorry newbies!

Today in the ultimate social networking coup, the Daily Mail reported that a loophole in the Facebook photo privacy settings allowed one savvy individual to access Mark Zuckerberg’s private photo albums. The rest is internet history. From hanging out with his girlfriend and puppy  to catching, killing and cooking his own chicken, it’s clear that Mark has a pretty typical interesting life.

Take a look below at our favorites and click here for the full collection of photos.

Today we’d like to shout out to our amazing Facebook wall photos. Why, you ask? Umm…because have you seen them? We are literally bringing LOLz into the lives of thousands of our followers. If your newsfeed is clogged with engagement announcements (too real), sonogram photos (waaay to real), public break-ups and drunken proclamations of “OMG BEST NIGHT EVER GIRLSSSS,” then it’s time to integrate some CC sarcasm.

Seriously. Have you even thought about how many of your friends are going to be receiving pimped out new cars/engagement rings/signed Twilight posters/herpes this holiday season…and documenting every last detail? In preparation, you might as well just “Like” us now and ensure yourself at least one screen cap of Mean Girls and more than a few cute puppy pics over the next few weeks. Who wants to see Jill’s new convertible anyway? You’ve got CC wall photos to click through!

Dear Dude,

I’m just going to jump straight into the situation. I’ve known this guy since 6th grade and we’ve always been good friends, until he told me he liked me about two years ago. After that, things changed. He started calling and texting more and we became close and started dating. After about a year of dating (non-exclusively), he told me he was still in love with his ex-girlfriend, and I was really hurt by this. I stopped talking to him and he got back together with her, and by then I loved him. After they broke up in June, I still hadn’t talked to him because I was mad/hurt/upset, but I still loved him (only God knows why!). About two weeks ago I texted him to invite him to my best friend’s birthday but I never heard back — of course. So last night I hung out with our mutual friend Jamie and she told me that he might’ve gotten some chick pregnant (not his ex, some random chick)…and I knew nothing about it — that’s why he’s been so distant. So I texted him asking him to come to the bar and we had this super long conversation about life, dating and he said he still liked me. I said I still liked him and I’d be willing to try dating him again. Later that night, after a few (ok about 7) drinks, I posted on his Facebook wall a few comments about coming to the bar and attending my best friend’s birthday party on Saturday. I woke up today and see that he deleted me on Facebook and now he won’t talk to me.

Why is he doing this? We talked about non-controversial things–I didn’t even bring up the pregnancy, and he still shut me out. I apologized for anything I might’ve said to him to make him delete me and he said “it’s alright” but apparently it’s not if he deleted me! Do you have any advice about this situation?

I still love him, and he likes me but I don’t know how to go about hanging out with him again — what did I do wrong to make him delete me off of his Facebook? I know this sounds childish and stupid but that was one of the two forms of communication we had. Thanks for reading and I would appreciate some advice.

-Confused and Perplexed.

Dear Confused and Perplexed,

It’s not you, it’s HIM. It’s all HIM. You know how they say it takes two to traumatize — well, yes and no — in this case it really took mostly HIM. His sh*t. His chaos. His dumbass. His issues. HIM. Got that? Don’t go digging for guilt because, trust me, you’ll always get a shovelful if you want it. Right now, you’re looking at it from the wrong perspective: yours.

Most likely, his meeting with you was something he was keeping secret from someone else (the ex, the mother of his child, or maybe someone else entirely) and you probably popped his lying bubble. So, don’t go blaming yourself. Most likely he was doing something that you threatened to undo, so he cut his losses. Jackass.

There are two issues to be deal with, IMO. First, he’s a jackass. You’re caught up in his emotional jackassdom. Why would he delete you off Facebook if you’ve done everything right? Because he’s got a lot going on and, in his mind, you’re a major complication. Doesn’t mean you are. Although, if he’s got a baby mama to deal with then maybe you are. I don’t know. You don’t know. You may never know. Most importantly, you don’t want to know. Don’t let yourself get sucked into his mess. Then, it’ll become your mess and is that what you want?

The second issue we’ve got here is your inability to let go of him. He has hurt you, betrayed you, used you, and not broke all contact. If there was ever a time to truly move on, this is it. You can always think nice thoughts about the way things were, but he’s not a realistic option and he sure isn’t going to be. You can want to have him in your life but that doesn’t mean he wants you in his life. It also doesn’t mean he’s healthy for your life. And his choice doesn’t necessarily have to have a damn thing to do with anything you did. So here we go: YOU’RE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS ACTIONS. Repeat that over and over again to yourself. You’re not responsible for his choices. You’re not to blame for his absence. He didn’t reject you because of something you did. Done.

Here’s the next step: moving on from him. Mourn it for a little while, go out with some friends and reconnect with yourself. This is a chance to be free of his chaos, lies, and your need for his acceptance. It’s a one way street from here on out. SpeedRacer through it with the top down.

Welcome to the rest of your life. Now live it.

The Dude

[Got a Dude itch you just can’t scratch? Sick of trying to come up with a not-totally-crazy-girl way to bring it up to your guy friends and get their take on things? Totally over over-analyzing the cryptic messages he leave on your Facebook Wall? We got your back, girlfriend. Send your question over to askthedude [at] collegecandy [dot] com. The Dude won’t sugarcoat it, beat around the bush, or any other weird cliche that means lie to you. Like a nice, juicy hot dog, he’ll be 100% real beef, 100% of the time. So bring. it. on.]