More of this, less of that

Today I told my boyfriend I’m going to start keeping a list of the jokes he tells that I like and a list of the ones I don’t like so that he can review the lists regularly and, in the future, better cater his jokes to my sense of humor.

“I’m not Facebook News Feed,” he told me. “You can’t just hit an icon of thumbs up or thumbs down to choose which kinds of stories you’d like to hear more and which you’d like to hear less.”

I hadn’t consciously made that connection, but he was right: I wanted to be able to have the same control over him that I have over my Facebook News Feed. Ideally, I’d like to have that kind of control over everything.

On News Feed I click “More of This” to receive more frequent updates about my exes’ bitter breakups, or to know when the hotties on my friends list update their phone numbers, class schedules and home addresses. I hit “Less of This” to block stories about heartwarming engagements or people receiving those irritating pieces of flair.

How cool would it be if I could do this in real life?

It would have been nice these past few weeks when I couldn’t take 10 steps through campus without someone asking if I was registered to vote and thrusting a registration form and a pencil at my chest. I wanted so badly to be able to click the thumbs down. Less of this harassment, please.

What about that crazy guy who used to show up on campus to tell us that we are all going to Hell? Or the pro-life group that holds up enlarged photographs of aborted fetuses? Come on now. Definitely less of this.

Sometimes I go to the library at the busiest time of day and someone will be leaving his computer just as I am arriving, and I will get to it faster than other people who probably have more work to do and have been waiting a lot longer. Thumbs up, universe. I’d like to see more things like this work out in my favor.

The other day my teacher told us there would be no class on Election Day because we would know who our next president would be and that knowledge would be too distracting. When we pointed out that the winner wouldn’t be announced until much later that night, he told us to take the day off anyway to just to think about our country. Fine with me. I wouldn’t mind seeing more of this.

I’d like to see more days with sunny skies and a slight autumn breeze and less days where I have to wear a coat in the morning but am sweating by the afternoon. I’d like to see more of the students who occasionally break-dance outside Ballantine Hall and less of the girl who shows up to my morning class looking like a supermodel.

What I want, more than anything, is to be able to control my offline environment as effectively as I control my Facebook News Feed.