The Five People You'll Friend on Facebook

Sometimes you get a friend request on Facebook that causes you to hesitate before clicking that “accept” button. Like a friend request from your boss, for example. Or your ex-girlfriend. Or that kid in Elementary school who used to eat your pencil shavings.

And then there are the bad Facebook friend choices that are less obvious. Like the Facebook Addict that crowds your Newsfeed with frequent updates from her boring, mundane life (“I just ate a subway and it was sooo good") or the Chronic Complainer who uses Facebook as a virtual confessional (“I almost KILLED that guy who caught me off in traffic today. God, I hate rush hour!”).

But as much as those irritating Facebook users give us reason to consider unfriending them, the truth is that we're all guilty of the odd Facebook faux pas from time to time. The following are five of the most common (and occasionally annoying) Facebook friend-types.

Which one are you?

The Artist

Interests: lifestyle design, Kurt Vonnegut, "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind", New York city

Group: Just because I'm an Artist and I can draw, doesn't mean I want to draw YOU

Status update: "I'll be reading my latest poetry tonight at the Cool Bean's poetry slam! Come and check it out!"

Chronically un or underemployed, the Artist is a frequent character on Facebook. She or he uses it as a means of self-promotion and thus, every post is either a link to their latest fan page or acoustic performance on YouTube.

With so many demands to “read / listen / click this!”, being a friend with The Artist can feel a little like being friends with an Internet pop-up ad. If they're not inundating you with invites to their gig at Catch a Rising Star comedy club, then they're spamming you with offers to invest in their latest Internet money-making scheme.

The Activist

Interests: Rainbows, world peace, pink

Group: Activists for the Conservation of the Gnome and other Magical Creatures

Status update: Help support “Mustard-Lovers Against Favoritism of Ketchup and all Tomato-based Products” and encourage your friends and family to boycott ketchup!

This Facebook friend cares about the world. Perhaps a little too much for most people's tastes, but her passion and dedication to saving the indigenous flea population of Waterloo can be inspiring. But it can also be annoying at times, as well. For no reason other than the fact that her selfless altruism is a constant reminder of how much of a lazy, self-centered bum you are in comparison. Because no matter how many Thanksgiving's spent volunteering at soup kitchens, your good deeds will always pale in comparison.

Fortunately, the Activist is too busy saving whales, protesting wars or canvasing against toxic penguin foot fungus to update her Facebook much.  But when she does, it usually consists of a random but depressing bit of world news you could have lived without knowing.

“79 percent of the world's hummingbird population are slaughtered by drunk boomerang throwers.”

“Every day, 386,000 Moldavian moths are killed by the toxic fumes from nail polish remover.”

Perhaps you'd lived your entire life blissfully unaware of that a Moldavian moth even existed. But now that you've read her status update, you find yourself compulsively canceling that pedicure appointment or signing up to donate a portion of your savings to save a creature you would have squashed had you found it flying in your bedroom.

The Traveler

Interests: Traveling, photography, The Lonely Planet, his travel blog

Group: Anthony Bourdain is my Homeboy

Status update: "Swam with the dolphins today in Aruba. It was fun, but ugh! Now I've got a sunburn"

The Traveler wants your pity.  Oh, no! Tommy the Traveler got a sunburn while swimming with the dolphins. Oh, no! Tommy the Traveler's backpack got soaking wet in a rain shower in Peru. Let's all pause in the middle of photocopying that work file or writing that 100-page thesis to feel sorry for him.

The Traveler Facebook friend is a double edged sword. Because while on the one hand, his photos of mountains and monkeys are never boring, on the other hand, the 11^th addition to his “Sunsets at Waikiki Beach” photo album can sometimes make his non-traveler friends feel jealous or even depressed.

Which is precisely what the Traveler wants. Although he may never admit it (even to himself) he secretly enjoys rubbing it in that he's swimming in Curacao while you're barely staying afloat in your cubicle. In fact, according to a UK study, 38 percent of travelers confess that they only reason they go on vacation at all is to the make their friends jealous. Called “netsetters” this new generation of travelers admit to wasting entire days of their vacations holed up in Internet cafes uploading photos onto Facebook and other social networking sites.

The Diva

Interests: Flip flops, Cosmos, Snooki

Group: "I See a Funny Group, I Laugh, I Join, I Never Look at it Again."

Status update: "If you like it, you shoulda put a ring on it."

The Diva is dramatic.  She's conceited.  And she's fond of uploading glamorous, model-y shots of herself and posting cryptic, passive-aggressive status updates aimed at ex-friends, boyfriends or co-workers.

Her status updates tend to begin with "OMFG. You won't believe what happened at the bar tonight..." and end with "LOLz".

She's a friend whore, in that she'll friend anyone and anything, even inadament objects and fictional characters. Her friend list includes her old high school, the DJ, "Club Med" and Edward Cullen.

She's also never met a Facebook group she didn't like and in fact, belongs to 154 of them, including the utterly asinine Disney Gave me Unrealistic Expectations of Men and I Flip My Pillow Over to Get to the Cold Side.

The New Mommy

Interests: My wonderful husband, my beautiful baby boy

Group: Hey Facebook, breastfeeding is not obscene!

Status update: "Jacob had diahrea again! Boo. : ( "

The New Mommy Facebook user is most easily recognized by the baby photo she uses as her profile picture. And no, it's not her baby photo, but rather a photo of Lil Jakey, her adorable spawn.

Using a photo of another human being as your own profile picture might seem strange to those not in the thralls of Motherhood. Or as the The Activist might say when on a break from rallying for organic garbage disposals: "A woman is not her child! She needs to have a separate identity!"

But once upon a time, The New Mommy did. Before Baby, she was a Diva in the club, downing Irish Car Bombs with the best of 'em. Or maybe she was a Traveler, uploading 39 photos of Stonehenge from every conceivable angle.

Where once her status update was: "Just watched the sun go down over Manchu Pichu", now her status update is "Just watched Dillon eat apple sauce for the first time!"

And even though giving birth is hardly unusual (361,481 babies are born in the world each and every day - that's four per second), there's no use in telling a New Mommy that. To her, the birth of her butterball was a miracle of Christ-like proportions.

Her status messages consist of a play-by-play of her child's every action. New Mommy's are famous for TMI-ing you with details of their lil darling's every bowel movement or spit color.

"Dillon played in the sprinkler and then ate a cupcake!" She'll post.

And then, 3 minutes and 42 seconds later...

"Dillon just got chocolate frosting on his nose! Isn't he cute? I think we've discovered his favorite food!"

As ridiculous as these status updates may seem to the New Mommy's childless friends, the other New Mommy's on Facebook can't get enough of it.

"LOL!" they'll comment via iPhone. "Dillon got chocolate on his nose! OMG. Jacob did the same thing at breakfast this morning, but with his oatmeal. Ah...boys will be boys!"