facebook knows I'm single

Having wittered on yesterday about the goodness of NYRs and how nice it is to see people signing up for the gym, today I've found myself muttering critically about Slimming World.

Slimming World isn't something I've ever taken any notice of. I think it's like WeightWatchers without the middle-class pressure. It's not a World I've ever had cause to belong to or take concern over. Yesterday however, I noticed that they'd gone crazy with their marketing. Every lamp-post, every roadside bollard, everything, everywhere, seemed to be sporting a tantalising and life-changing reason to join Slimming World.

Thinking about it, I don't get on well in lots of Worlds. I once threw up in World of Leather, and the day I wore a red t-shirt to PC World will be etched in my memory for some time. Besides all of that, it's really a bit pretentious to call a shop a 'world' I think.

The reason the lovely ladies at Slimming World made me roll my eyes was that they were clearly playing on people's New Year's Resolutions (and profiting out of people's failure to keep last year's identical ones). And I (yes, I am old-fashioned) don't like such targeted and cynical marketing.

Cue the lovely facebook. I am no fan of the social networking daddy that is the facebook. Whenever I go on there, it wants to set me up with 'girls who might be looking for me'. In fact it happens on a lot of sites (especially through sponsored listings and such like). The ads are targeted directly at what it thinks I need most and am likely to 'buy' online. And at the moment, that must-have commodity is apparently a subscription to a dating service*

Now I wouldn't mind, except for the selection of girls the system has decided are looking for me. For reasons beyond the boundaries of explanation and common sense, these girls are all... and I'm not joking... ridiculously gorgeous. And I... and I'm really not joking... am ridiculously incredulous. If facebook's got it right, impossibly beautiful singletons should be crowding around me on a daily basis, falling from the sky like angels in a Lynx advert.

In reality of course, girls who look like this walk past as though they were passing a pillarbox. Which is OK. But that whole topic is best left for another time I think.

So, facebook knows I'm single and it annoys me. Slimming World knows a lot of people want to lose weight at the beginning of January and that annoyed me too. I should probably be less annoyed.

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In other news, I saw an article on the news about a man who suffers with Aspergers Syndrome. For the first time in my life I considered the possibility that I might have something like that and did a test online. You can find it here if you want to try yourself. I came out as a 29 with 32 being the lower limit of most people diagnosed with the condition. 15 seems to be the average. I then told my parents about it and it's suddenly become a big thing.

I suggested they had a go themselves.

*As well as being treated like a fool, this also carries the implication that the one thing I need in life is a relationship, because it's a fast-track to happiness and fulfilment. You don't need me to tell you that this is not the case. And if you do, keep posting about how lonely you are on facebook.