Mania, paranoia, egotism, neurosis; you will probably see it all as you navigate your way through a stress-filled legal career. Hell, you migh even suffer one or two of these afflictions yourself at some point. When it gets really bad it’s probably time to take a holiday. And by that we mean before you start suffering from all of them at the same time and not taking a leave of your senses. The existence of the Priory, Prozac etc suggests that not everyone manages to judge this for themselves so inevitably there are those that begin to crack in full view. Hence, from Law Firm 10 at the Bitter Lawyer – her colleague Madame Bovary ; Facebook’s Madame Bovary even…

Annie, a married seventh-year associate that I work with, seems to be using Facebook as an alternate universe where she brags about imaginary exploits and engages in online affairs using a faux persona.  Apparently, when it comes to having a mid-life crisis, Facebook is the new Ferrari.

Up to this point, Annie has always exhibited limitless attention-seeking behaviors, including (but not limited to) constantly sharing private details about herself.  I’ve never asked her a single personal question, yet I know that she was raised in a strict Protestant evangelical family and went wild in college with cocaine and clubbing; that she briefly split from her husband and had an affair with an auto mechanic from the western suburbs (and claims he is still in love with her and that his new wife stalks her); and how much she spends every time she goes to Target.  Once she (ironically) openly pouted at an associate cocktail hour because no one noticed her new Juvederm injections.

Last week, she and I traveled to Dallas for the case we work on together.  On the way (thanks to Gogo Inflight Internet ), she spent the entire time on Facebook and randomly turned to me to exclaim things like, “I’m friends with an artist from Brazil who painted a psychedelic portrait of me and posted a photo of it online—I wonder if that makes his wife mad!” and “I bet it makes the new wife of my old lover so jealous when she sees the pictures of my fabulous life!” and “My yoga instructor is so hot, and he just wrote on my wall!” With her, these non-sequiturs are par for the course, but something did spark my attention—the fact that her profile didn’t look like it had her real name on it.

Uh-oh. Click here to see the rest.