Dear [Facebook Friend Who Just Got Back From A Trip In Las Vegas],

Hello, how are you?  Wait, that was a stupid question.  I already know you are doing great! You are so happy because it's "SUMMAAA" and you're "lovin' life" and your "BFFs & fam."

And you just got back from an exciting trip to Las Vegas, I see.  You've been talking about it for quite awhile now. I was very anxious to see how the pictures would turn out.  

Unfortunately, I have some bad news for you. I looked through  your Las Vegas photo album last night. Twice, just to make sure I wasn't missing something. But I wasn't. So let me be blunt. Your Las Vegas photographs are boring. Painfully so.

Yes, I am aware that I barely know you in real life. No, it's not creepy of me to care about your Facebook pictures. Please don't take this personally. I just like to live vicariously through other people by looking at their vacation photographs on Facebook.  

After looking through your album, I felt like I had vicariously just stood in a pool, stood in a line, stood in a club, and stood in a hotel room, all for the hefty price of $224. Oh, and I did some sitting and humiliating dance moves, as well.  

 How did this happen?

I saw so much promise in you, when, one week before your trip, you changed your status to "VEGAS BABY!"  When I read that, I assumed that you were the kind of fun, spontaneous person who could drop everything to go crazy. You know, the kind of badass who parties in Vegas.   

Or is that the kind of person who parties in Vegas?  After looking through your carefully-choreographed photographs, I just don't know anymore.

And when you arrived, you made your trip sound so exciting. You updated your Facebook status from your phone, to say that you were "in VEGAS," and I already made a mental note to look at your Facebook album when you got back.

And then the next morning, you changed your status to "o god what happened last night in VEGAS."

My imagination stirred with curiosity and lust, thinking of the things you could have done the previous night, now burned forever from your memory by too many tequila shots.

Imagine, then, my disappointment, when after your Vegas vacation, you posted that photo album, "What happens in Vegas..."

In your first series of pictures, you are standing with your friends in front of different shiny buildings at different times of day. Yawn. 

In your next series of pictures, you are sitting inside a nice restaurant. The flash is on too bright. This is not a flattering look for anyone.  Please turn the flash off the next time you feel the need to photograph yourself eating.

Your next series of pictures captures a fancy alcoholic drink in your hand that is unique in color, with a unique shape of whipped cream on top of it. You seem to be particularly amazed by this drink, as evidenced by your capturing it at every angle with every combination of friends smiling next to it imaginable.  

And then, there's a series of shots by the pool. Don't get me wrong. It's a very nice looking pool, and you all look very tan and thin and attractive.  

But if you were just going to stand in front of buildings, then eat and drink inside of them, was the drive to Vegas really necessary? Why not Fresno? They have bars, restaurants and pools, but they cost much less to use and there's shorter lines for everything.  

I felt that you were truly teasing me with that picture of you holding a shot glass, where the caption reads "Oh no..."  I thought this was meant to foreshadow the arrival of your party photographs. These are the ones where I finally expected to see you snorting cocaine off of sushi resting on a strange man's belly.

Instead, I was greeted with you and those same three girls, again.  You made funny faces in the camera, presumably because you were drunk. Then suddenly, it gets serious. You all stand together in your hotel, with a different girl rotating on camera, to fully capture what it looks like when you are standing inside a room wearing a pretty dress with a serious look on your face. 

Your pictures taken in the actual club are the only ones with some sense of spontaneity.  You appear to be deeply moved by the music and your arms are in the air.  

But even these feel forced. Is it really that exciting for a straight woman to dance with three other women? The same three women, no less, who she sees every morning and night in her hotel room?

If you wanted to capture your friends truly having fun, why not photograph them when they finally found a man to dance with?

Or why not photograph a friend after she's tired of dancing, when she takes the man outside, inspects his face under the street light, and finds that he's not half bad looking?  I thought that was one of the few genuinely happy moments people experience when they go clubbing.  

I went to Las Vegas when I was 5 and was impressed by the pretty lights. I went again when I was 14.  All I remember from that trip is visiting an M &M museum and waiting for three hours to get a table at The Cheesecake Factory.  I was still too naive to understand why those people at the bar looked so much happier than me.  

When my friends and I turned 21, everyone became excited about going to Vegas again. "We gotta go to Vegas!" they would say.

But, as I look through your pictures, I just don't see any reason to go.  

Can't you gamble and drink somewhere closer, or at least cheaper (like Fresno!)? I did hear there are some cool  shows in Vegas.  Did you not go to them?  Or did you just think I would prefer to see 57 pictures of you sitting and standing rather than stills of a talented performer?

I suppose you couldn't afford the shows, after spending so much money on the drive, the hotel, the food, and the drinks.

If you had more of a passion for gambling, perhaps your trip would have been better, and you'd have more photographs of you looking interested in something beyond how cute your smile is for the camera. 

Yet I see no gambling photographs here. So why exactly was your trip so special? Was it the pretty lights everywhere? Why not just buy some Christmas lights and stare at them while you drink in Fresno?

Regretfully Signed,

A Disappointed Stalker