My Eyes! My Eyes!

[Clara Bow]

I made the glaring error of having most of my extended family on my facebook. I will never do this again.

Today on my newsfeed my cousin Jessi's husband had the following as a status: "There's something about making out with my topless wife in the dressing room at the Gap that makes me happy."

I now know way too much about my cousin. WAY too much.

Is there any polite way to say anything about this? Our grandparents, aunts, uncles (as in, her parents!!), cousins etc are all going to see that. I can just imagine my Aunt Leigh's reaction...she is a model of decorum and taste and somehow I don't think that she's going to be thrilled to hear that her daughter was nearly doing the hippity-dippity in a dressing room. Not to mention what Jessi's nieces are going to think when they see it.

My reply was "Now I know why the words 'family unity' give me hives...."

[Kasia_Kiwi]

Two words: limited profile.

If someone posts such personal comments, it's likely they would not care who sees them, no matter what their status or level of decorum. Obviously, they want to be seen.  You can edit settings to restrict what you see from certain people but that's more a help to you than the other members of your family.
It's not really your responsibility to monitor what the rest of your family sees (especially the adults), you can be embarassed for your cousins, but don't jump into the hole with them.

[ettiquit]

WHY do people think this is appropriate information to share?  The act itself I won't comment on, but why broadcast it?  I'd hide him from your feed.

[Windlass]

Thanks to Facebook's new privacy settings, it's not necessary that EVERYONE sees what she says.  I have several "friends" lists set up on FB, which automatically filter out certain posts (Farmville people automatically don't see ANY of my posts, for instance).  I have another called "Shh!" for people who I really only want to share certain things with, so when I make a post that I feel might offend them for whatever reason, I simply select to exclude them.

It's possible your cousin's husband has sensitive people set aside on a list that won't see posts like this.  If YOU'RE uncomfortable with it, you can always bring it up to him that you'd maybe like to be left out of such, um, ruminations, but without being logged in to your relatives' FB accounts, you don't know for sure what they are or are not seeing.

Unless Nana is already adamantly voicing her approval, of course.

[PeasNCues]

Does anybody really need to know that??

My goodness, that is TMI for ME and I don't even know them!

[Clara Bow]

Kasia, I think that you make a good point that it's not to me to be the Facebook Sheriff. I didn't really intend to be...if Jessi doesn't mind her husband broadcasting their business then I can buy enough beandip to get through the next few weeks with Granny. I just don't want to see it.

Thanks for the privacy setting advice. I'm going to look into that.

It's not that I'm a prude...I just reserve the right to pick and choose who I have those "blue" conversations with. That and I think it's kind of nasty to tell the world about your private business.

[Larrabee]

I'd be tempted to comment with your thread title!

More seriously, hide from your newsfeed and try to forget if you possibly can, there's not much else you can do.

[Twik]

WHY do people think this is appropriate information to share?  The act itself I won't comment on, but why broadcast it?  I'd hide him from your feed.

I assume that the same impulse that made them think it was appropriate to do in the first place.

[Perfect Circle]

I'm pretty liberal, but quite frankly I found it rather odd that anyone would like to share this sort of information on FB. I mean seriously? Who needs to know about people's private activities?

[sbtier]

I'd let his parents and grandparents school him.   

[Scritzy]

Gad, if I posted something like that, I wonder what the friend who got all weird over my eating peach ice cream would have to say. My PM Inbox would probably explode!

[Seraphia]

Wow. That's...um...wow. I think your response was ok. It let him know that, "hey I'm not terribly comfortable knowing that about you," without delving into "CRUD MONKEYS! EWWW grossie yuck yuck!" territory. And POD on limiting him from now on.

He can choose to continue to post about his intimate activities if he likes, but you most certainly do not have to read about it.

[CakeEater]

I guess her family can be grateful he was making out with his wife and not someone else.

[blarg314]

I'm picturing a response from a friend

"Thinking about your topless wife makes *me* happy too!"
 

[Brentwood]

While that is TMI for anyone, think about this. There is apparently a fan page called "Morning Sex" - consider how I felt when I saw that my son-in-law had "liked" it.