Facebook Drama - It's An Epidemic

It amazes me, the stupidity in this country overcoming common sense and the thirst for knowledge.  The resources we have to search out answers is amazing – not only do we have libraries, but we have the internet that gives us a choice to believe or search and there are a lot of us who would rather not search, even if we don’t believe.  We would rather sit complacently by and share a story rather than find out if it’s true.

What’s my problem today?  Facebook, again.  I wish I could quit it, I really do, but I like the fact that it has kept me in touch with family members that I normally wouldn’t hear from on a day to day basis, and it has reconnected me with friends from long ago.  That said, it makes me realize that some of my friends are more toward the bottom of the food chain.

Recently, an old acquaintance posted about toothpaste and chemicals and color bars.  When I saw it I thought to myself is this true?  And I immediately went in search of an answer.  It wasn’t true and I posted the link in his comments section, hoping that it wouldn’t go further.  Under my post someone swore that they were switching toothpastes.  They couldn’t believe it.  I wanted to comment for them to read the link above them, but I wanted to see how far it would go.  My friend didn’t acknowledge my contribution.  Several people ignored it and then the last person to post said it was a hoax and he liked their comment.  Now I know what I’m dealing with here – he’s a total drama queen that wants to get everyone worked up and then let them know there’s nothing to worry about.  He lives for dramatic comments and fights among his friends that he can monitor, and even though I loved working with him years ago, I’m going to un-friend him.  In fact, I’m going to go through my list and dismiss others as well.  The ones I just don’t talk to, the ones that have “collected” me, I will leave in my internet dust. 

I do have friends who post old Amber Alerts or news stories who don’t check on them before they re-post them.  The most common post is of the two little boys who were abducted somewhere in the middle of the country by their parents.  The headline doesn’t say that though, it just says they were taken.  Every time I click on that story so I can find the link that says they’ve been found.  I then post it to her page and every time I get a Thank God! response from her.  I don’t mind this so much as she’s actually reading what I posted.  Kind of makes me happy that she is considering what I said.

I don’t usually go all ape-shit about expired amber alerts because it puts the fear of God into people and might make them a little more wary for themselves and their children, maybe even their dogs and cats. Who knows?  I like to let them know, though, if they’ve been found, especially if it’s a good ending.

I guess as I get older I don’t worry so much of offending someone with the truth.  I’m guessing some people don’t like it, and I’m realizing that sometimes I just don’t care.  I’m tired of lies, smokescreens, and un-thought-thru “shares”.  And I’m tired of people saying they are my friend when they are not, and me wasting my time on them.

 

By the way, I know I'm not the only one experiencing this - what sets you off???

Rambling...

Do you ever look at a white screen and wonder “What relevant words will pour from my fingers today?”?  I am asking myself this at this very moment.  I know I need to write, but what do I want to write about right now?  What do people want to read?  No offense, but I gave up romantic poetry when I was seventeen.  When I realized Romeo and Juliet were right to kill themselves.  Stupidity such as theirs needs to be destroyed.  Star crossed lovers?  More like co-dependent children.  Romance was for fairy tales.   It still is.

I was reading the newspaper earlier and there were stories that made me think that I should write about my opinion but sometimes (meaning most of the time) I wonder if I’m really agreeing or disagreeing with an article or passively aggressively sabotaging myself.  I find myself leaning farther and farther to the right either as I grow older or because I work in a largely republican atmosphere.  I’m not sure which.  Sometimes I hear something pop out of my mouth and I can’t believe I said something that may be construed as racist or non-gay. 

Here was a conversation a couple weeks ago with my boyfriend about facebook and gay marriage.  I’m not even sure how it came about to that but here is the gist:

“I am so tired of hearing about gay marriage!” – me.

“Well, it’s important to them and it’s their right to get married” – him.

“But I have gay friends and it is all I ever see on their facebook posts.  Gay marriage this, gay marriage that.  There’s nothing else” – me.

“Because they should be able to post pictures of their weddings like straight people do.  We post stuff all the time about our life, why is it not ok for them to post theirs?” – him.

“Because that’s all they post!  Not THEIR weddings!  Gay propaganda!  I want to know what my friends are doing on the weekend or what their gardens look like or what crazy thing their pets or kids did in the last twenty four hours!”  - me.

“Oh my God!  It’s not like I hate gay people.  Don’t look at me like that” – me.  I put my face in my hands.

“So you don’t like the political postings” – him.

“YES!”  - me, exclaiming it loudly. 

I HATE political posts on facebook because everyone sounds like they are expert assholes and I don’t want my friends to be assholes.

So no, I’m not homophobic, and I know equal rights for everyone is important, I’m just very tired of the political positioning everyone takes.  I think we should all just try to be nicer to one another.  Everyone, not just regular people. Politicians, criminals, lawyers, police, business owners, crossing guards, etc., etc., etc. 

Well, now.  There we are.  I have actually written something today.  Is it relevant?  Not really sure.  Will it be read?  Probably not.  If it gets read, will anyone comment on it?  I highly doubt it.  But I have reached the goal I wanted to reach today and it has actually made me want to write something else.

Have a great day!

A Tissue For My Issue?

Last night I went to bed angry and slept fairly soundly.  Actually, I slept better than I normally do when all is right with the world.  Why would I go to bed angry?  There is a good answer for that and here it is.  I had a friend.  I had a very good friend.  When I stopped working with her we would talk and visit once in a while.  When I worked closer to her I would stop down on my lunch hour maybe once a week, or two.  She never came up to visit me although her time was more flexible than mine, but that didn’t matter.  At one point she just stopped talking to me.  I went in to visit and she was curt and uncommunicative.  I still have no idea what I did, but for the longest time she ran from me.  Stayed in her car when I pulled into the parking lot after her or turned her head if she drove by me as I walked to the office.  Just last week she and her husband ran a stop sign at the end of the one-way street because had they stopped our cars would have been next to each other.  She un-friended me on Facebook.  At first I thought she deleted her account but when I looked she was still friends with everyone else.  I got the picture and although it hurt at first I chalked it up to live and learn, one cannot hold another as a friend if that other person doesn’t want to be.

I left work last night only to be followed by her and with her was a mutual friend.  I looked in the rearview and saw them while I sat at the light.  The only thing I thought was that wasn’t it nice that they were still so close.  Yes, a little sarcastically, but what else can I do?  I knew they were still paling around.  Whatever.  They stay a good ways behind me and we take the same route.  When I get to my village I pull over at the post office and she does too.  I think to myself that this will be interesting, but I put on my sunglasses and walk at a normal pace into the post office.  I get my mail and walk out.  I don’t look at her car.  To me she is invisible, and worse, a stranger.  I don’t know her anymore.  I get in my car and start it up.  She pulls out from behind me and honks.  Both of them wave.  It takes everything I have not to give her the finger but the woman in her car with her is a friend of my mother’s, and someone I used to scrapbook with and I respect her more than that.

I get home and I post on Facebook something along the lines of “Don’t expect me to wave and honk.  We’re not friends”.  I get a bunch of likes and I don’t use names.  When I pick up my boyfriend later I tell him what happened.  He asks me if I spoke to her and I told him no, that she never rolled down her window, didn’t yell from her car, didn’t get out or make any effort.  He was glad I ignored her.  He didn’t think she needed to be acknowledged since she hadn’t done the same for me the last year and a half.

Later he gets on Facebook.  He sees my post and he gets all “Why did you post that?” attitude.  I walked away.

Later he asks me if I’m mad at him.  I tell him no and go to bed mad.

This morning after I’ve had some time to think I ask him what his problem was with the post I put on my wall.  He told me that I shouldn’t put anything on there that I wouldn’t say to her face and since I wouldn’t it shouldn’t have gone up.  He said that I’m not that time of person, implying that that person is an idiot.  I told him that it isn’t often that I put things like that up but I do and I AM that sort of person.  And now I’m really angry.

I could roll ten different things I’m mad at him about into this and make him into a complete jerk, but he’s not.  But after ten years I have to wonder if he knows who I really am.  I basically have the attitude “live and let live”.  Whoever you are is who you are and maybe I like you or I don’t but it’s your life, not mine.  I do this with him all the time because he is definitely a lot different than me.  He, however, is very judgmental and I feel it a lot even when it’s not aimed at me.  I basically start an argument with him before I can stop, challenging his views.  I am trying to stop that because I know I can’t win and it just causes hard feelings.  If I walk away I’ll forget about it.

After all this, what really bothers me is that he thinks I should be a better person, when I’m trying to be the best person I can be already.  I’m tired.  I would like to tell everyone to go jump off a cliff.  I would like things to go my way.  I don’t.  They don’t.  And sometimes I vent about it.  Here it is.

Superficiality - Guilty or Not? Or Am I Human?

I have to point out that I am spiteful and that I hold a grudge far longer than anyone I know.  That said, I’d like to talk about why.  I’m a loner.  I always have been.  I have only had one best friend at a time, starting when I was five.  I met my first best friend at our neighbor’s chicken coop.  I was watching the chickens while my dad was at the barn getting fresh milk.  This little girl comes up to me (the farmer’s granddaughter) and asks me if I want to be her best friend.  We were inseparable for seven years.  When we entered junior high she became popular and I did not.  She hung out with the cheerleaders and sports groups.  I hung out with nerds and outsiders.  What’s funny is that I never held that against her.  I still smiled and waved to her in the halls, and as we became adults we always spoke when we ran into each other.  She was the best first best friend a girl could ask for.

No, I’m not sure when I started holding grudges but it was definitely after I started dating.  In my senior year I lost my virginity and the guy I lost it to.  My best friend at the time was a geek like me.  Not such a loner (she really didn’t have the dark, sad look that I had and couldn’t pull it off), she had lost her first boyfriend through a tragic car accident.  When my ex asked her out she came to me all excited and asked if it was ok.  I told her that it would be, as long as I didn’t have to hear all the gory details.  She told me all the gory details and I promptly walked away from her- forever.  I tried to get back in touch with her later on just to see how life was treating her but she made her life sound too busy to really give me a straight answer so I never got back to her.

I have held grudges and then let them go.  This includes my brother’s ex-girlfriend.  We did everything together – shopping, partying, clubbing, heart-to-hearts – it was great and I never loved any of my friends like I loved her.  Then she decided to get married, and I was the person she asked to spend her last night as a single girl with.  Then she moved away, started having babies, and made new friends.  Did I resent that?  I guess I did.  We barely spoke and it’s only now, after several years of being back in the neighborhood, do we keep in contact and see each other.

I’ve gone through several jobs in the last couple of years.  Not because I was fired or laid off, but because the pain of going to a job where one’s voice didn’t matter anymore hurt too much and the way staff were treated was abominable.  I had been there for ten years and made some really good friends, or so I thought, until I left and worked elsewhere.  One of my very best friends, yes, I said best, didn’t even show up at my barbeque last year after I had spoken with her two days before to confirm.  At that point she was saying that she would absolutely be there.  She never showed up or called.  At this point I had been gone from that employment for one year.  I had kept in touch with them, visited, emailed, called.  I should have known something wasn’t right the last time I stopped in there.  She sat at her desk while I visited with other staff and she kept her head down.  She wouldn’t even look at me.  I never went back, and a couple weeks later she fired a woman she had worked with for years.

What bothers me is that she didn’t talk to me.  We were such good friends, or at least I thought we were.  I realize that I was no longer part of her work environment but we used to get together to eat once in a while.  We partied at each other’s home, we knew each other’s children, we even took their phone calls if the other was busy.  I don’t know if I did something wrong, or if I offended her in some way.  She took one of my other friends with her (I know this sounds very 8^th grade, but it’s how it really happened).  She brought her in to volunteer to cover for the person she fired.  That friend hasn’t really spoken to me since either, just a phone call by me at Thanksgiving.  I had also called her to see if she wanted to scrapbook with me, but she told me she couldn’t afford it, so no, she did not want to go.  She was very short with me and I knew then that I was out of the loop.

I miss my friends.  I miss the camaraderie and the silliness. The other day I realized that I had been un-friended on Facebook.  It was then that I realized that what I was doing in my life no longer mattered to her.  The other friend, the one she took with her, will speak to my boyfriend and ask him for favors, but will not call me or try to engage in conversation when we run into each other.  Not that I do, either.  Work friendships are just that, friends from work.  Once you leave you can’t go back, unless you offer to help out, and I just can’t so I lose.  The only thing is, they do too.

So am I spiteful?  I guess I am.  But I think maybe I’m a little more wary of superficial friends.  If one isn’t true, then I don’t want it.  And I guess they don’t either.