Is she really like that? Or is it Facebook Personality Disorder?

Everyone has that family member who tests the grit of their teeth and the roll of their eyes. Luckily, mine is part of the extended family, not the immediate. Still, when I got her Facebook friend request a couple of years back I felt like a captured fugitive.

Beads of sweat bubbled up on my brow as I cursed Facebook for not having the equivalent of a fire escape and frantically wondered, "How did she find me?"

With nowhere to turn and the "loving family member" part of my future headstone on the line, I clicked "accept." Immediately, the nonimmediate family member greeted me with a warm wall post. Interesting, I thought as I replied in kind. A couple of days later she posted a series of old-school soul videos, all worthy of a "like" from yours truly. In the following weeks she left many an encouraging comment on my status updates and ended them with terms of endearment.

As it turns out, my obnoxious cousin in real life is actually my really cool cousin on Facebook. How is that possible? I like to call it Facebook Personality Disorder, or FPD, a condition from which many people suffer that is solely exposed through the social media website. Translation: It's when someone acts one way in person and a completely different way on Facebook.

The first case I witnessed was years ago. A friend of a friend enforced a strict "no cursing" policy on her Facebook wall. Now, I can understand and respect a policy like that. But I can understand and respect it a lot more if it comes from someone who upholds it in real life.

Let's put it this way. If this woman and I were two cartoon characters, our dialogue boxes would have a lot of this "$!@*%" in them. For that same woman to insist on using LMBO as opposed to LMAO made about as much sense as Mary Poppins trading vocabularies with one of the Mob Wives.

Hers was a mild case of FPD. This next one was much more severe.

When you dress dapperly and regularly exchange pleasantries with acquaintances, one can only assume the best of you. I assumed the best of this guy. That's the effect of argyle, I guess.

While in real life he looked like the kind of guy who whistled while shining his penny loafers, on Facebook he turned into the schoolyard bully. Well, not so much the schoolyard bully as the kid who regularly throws down his bicycle and puts his dukes up. Even if it's over something as trivial as which is better, crust or no crust on that PB&J sandwich.

A bully wants to hurt. Argyle guy just wanted to fight.

Oh, and there was no subject too menial to fight over, either. Sports updates would lead to novel-length rebuttals. And, movie and TV opinions could have innocent Facebook friends supporting their "likes" the same way they would a thesis paper.

In person he wouldn't dare jump into a conversation without an invitation, but on Facebook he loved to crash a good party. He just stalked those updates and waited for the prime opportunity to pounce.

What did he do the next time he saw you? Well, he exchanged pleasantries and walked away whistling, of course.

Unlike my cousin, whose Facebook personality makes her much easier to tolerate, this guy made me want to scuff up some loafers and burn some argyle. You know, real violent stuff.

But my cousin's FPD is the good kind, like the thyroid problem that makes you lose weight instead of gain it. Except for her, she lost obnoxiousness while most people gain it.

For instance, we all have a Facebook girlfriend who demonstrates a personality as wholesome as Wonder Bread in person and then online becomes a sexpot. Many male readers are probably still waiting to hear the obnoxious part. Here's what, unless you have a famous butt deserving of its own autograph, I will never understand why all your photos are taken of the back of you as you smile over the shoulder of your skintight dress. I will especially never understand it if you use the "check in" feature to let us know you've found your pew at church every Sunday.

The hardest part comes with deciding who the real person is, the social media personality or the in-person personality. I prefer to think of my cousin as the approachable, supportive woman she exhibits online. I prefer to think of that other guy as a muscle shirt disguised in argyle.

Then again, you also have those people who are equally obnoxious through social media as they are in real life. There's a name for them, too. Reliable.

Contact columnist Xazmin Garza at xgarza@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0477.
Follow her on Twitter @startswithanx.