I joined Pinterest today. If this is an unfamiliar Internet term to you, I'll explain: Pinterest is a social website where you can browse photos of things you're interested in. The photos are all organized by category, making browsing easy and horribly convenient. Plus, on Pinterest, you can create your own "boards" that let you organize and "repin" the images you are interested in. And, on top of all that, you can follow your friends and see what they're posting.
And it's addicting as can be.
I was playing around on it, checking out home decor and recipes, making boards and having the best time ever. My night began to be centred around online shopping and baking the delicious foods found on Pinterest. I was so happy. Then I started browsing through some of my friends' posts, and ended up looking at wedding dresses. Because the back on one of them was so ornate and detailed and oh my god, lace?! Just as I was about to create a "Wedding" board, I came crashing back to reality: I'm a 20-year-old student. I'm not getting married anytime soon. I have no desire to get married anytime soon, lace or no lace.
And from what I can tell, I am not the only girl who goes momentarily crazy on Pinterest. Many of my friends, both single or otherwise, seem to have these wedding boards. And I admit, it's fun to plan for the future and maybe for your dream wedding, but every time I even consider creating a wedding board, I imagine a current or future boyfriend coming across that board and freaking right out. Because how crazy is that - oh hey, we just started dating, but here's my pre-planned wedding complete with antique, pink glass tea light centrepieces, just insert yourself here. Uh. If I was that guy, I'd bolt.
Are girls not realizing this? Sure, you may think you're safe because your boyfriend doesn't currently have Pinterest, and how would he ever see your craziness? But maybe you have his cousin on Facebook, or his brother's girlfriend? And one day she comes across your "14 top veil choices" and jokingly comments that "that Tonaya is absolutely crazy - your brother had better watch out." Game over. How do you come back from this level of sudden-attack commitment?
Moral of the story: hide your craziness in plain sight. For example, I save documents and lists on my laptop with titles like "Grade 12 English vocab," and I've also created a favourites list in Explorer called "Tonaya's Biology 140 Project." My Word Documents can be personal journal entries, poetry or really just anything I don't want others getting into. And my Bio project? Well, it's everything that you'd find in a crazy wedding board. Clever, hey?
Tonaya Marr is always available to give advice when it comes to appearing more sane in public than you actually are. You can get hold of her at tonaya.marr@gmail.com or send her a tweet @TonayaMarr.
