Lesbians like drama. Lesbians will not hesitate to instigate a confrontation, because it gives them the opportunity to process, process and process some more until they eventually resolve the conflict. Resolving conflict gives lesbians a sense of accomplishment. Lesbians will artificially initiate a conflict just to feel the sense of accomplishment resulting from resolving the conflict. Lesbians also like watching other lesbians get into conflicts, because it gives them the opportunity to feel charitable when they give unsolicited advice to the parties involved. After all, lesbian drama is a team sport, and lesbians love team sports. But as with everything, lesbian drama has evolved.

In 1998, otherwise known as the year 6 B.F.*, most lesbian drama took place offline. Sure, there were a few particularly nasty e-mail exchanges that were forwarded to uninvolved parties for their input and/or amusement. And yes, there were a few people in college who used their .plan files as a passive aggressive means to confront those they knew would be fingering** them. But for the most part, lesbian drama was limited to face-to-face confrontations.

Fast-forward ten years to 2008.

Web 2.0 has ushered in a new age of increased connectivity and diminished privacy, which has made lesbians’ favorite social activities – gossiping about, confronting and stalking other lesbians – much easier.

The most obvious culprit is Facebook. Facebook has become the Santa Ana winds fueling the wildfire of lesbian drama. Facebook’s News Feeds and Status Updates have taken lesbian drama out of your living room to all 200 people in your network, including your siblings, coworkers, that dude from high school whose name you can’t remember, the girl who has a secret crush on you and who checks your status updates religiously, and an entire merry band of lesbians, most of whom you’ve met only once.

By instituting the News Feed feature, Facebook has made stalking compulsory, i.e. you’re going to see everyone’s business whether you like it or not. However, this post is not about intentional stalking and miscreant behavior; that would be too easy. This post is about the drama that unfolds when lesbians believe they aren’t doing anything out of the ordinary, but due to the voyeuristic nature of Facebook, an ordinary act quickly sets off a domino effect culminating in a circus sideshow of lesbian drama.

For example, who hasn’t logged in and seen something resembling the following oozing off her News Feed?

Amy has written on Jackie’s wall:

“I love you BooBear. I am so tired this morning! I wonder why?! LOLOL!!!”

Jackie has written on Amy’s wall:

“HoneyPot, that was fun! You’re my little slurp machine! *Slurp*! Luuuuuv, BooBear!”

Unlike the MySpace comments section, which keeps conversations like this relegated to a user’s personal page, Facebook mass-blasts the exchange to all 200 Facebook contacts via their News Feeds. Congratulations, “BooBear” and “HoneyPot.” All of your contacts know your pet names and which one of you is the pillow queen! Ew, get a (chat)room!

Then HoneyPot’s ex logs in, reads the exchange, and makes a snarky comment in her own profile, thinking no one else will read it. But the Facebook News Feed sees all and publishes all. Oooh, get out the popcorn! Facebook fight!

Sometimes, a quick and innocent modification of one’s profile can bring a storm of unwanted attention and may even cause a domestic dispute. Let’s say our hypothetical lesbian heroine simply wants to unclutter her profile by removing some of her personal information. She removes her employment information, her political affiliation and her relationship status. Since Facebook’s algorithm is intended to be as childish as possible, removal of her relationship status triggers a News Feed announcement that she is single, accompanied by an icon of a broken heart:

In fact, she has not broken up with her girlfriend and isn’t even aware that Facebook has publicly announced that she is single.

Since lesbians are naturally wired to look for opportunities to give unsolicited advice to other lesbians, within five minutes of updating her profile, our hapless lesbian friend begins to receive text messages, gchats and e-mails about the change in her relationship status.

“What happened? Are you ok?”
“Hey, I know someone who would be a great rebound girl! Call me!”
“What did she do? I’m going to kick her ass!”

At first she is puzzled, but then one of her friends informs her about the Facebook News Feed breakup announcement.

“Oh no! What do I do?!” she cries.

Through gchat and text messaging, her friends start giving her advice. It is unanimous: “Change your relationship status back before she finds out!!!”

Finally, she rushes back to change her relationship status back to “in a relationship.”

But it is too late. Since she is also Facebook friends with her girlfriend’s Facebook friends, they have already contacted her girlfriend, who calls our heroine up and shouts, “DID YOU JUST BREAK UP WITH ME THROUGH FACEBOOK?! OH HELL NO!”

Our heroine explains that it was all a horrible mistake and changes her status update to: MY GIRLFRIEND AND I ARE STILL TOGETHER. DAMN YOU, FACEBOOK. DAMN YOU!

And the text messages, gchats and e-mails subside. And all of our heroine’s Facebook friends feel a sense of accomplishment, because the conflict has been resolved, and they feel as if they were a part of its resolution.

* Before Facebook
** For people who went to college prior to the 1990′s, it’s not what you think it is. “Finger” is a UNIX command used by college students to stalk people over their school network… well, until Facebook came along and made its use obsolete.