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???

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.

 

 

My Bra

   I’ve been wearing the same bra for years.  I did have two that I wore religiously but it wore out.  No, it didn’t have two big holes in the front.  Nope, don’t wear a big bra.  Let me give you a little history lesson.

   When I was twelve and all my friends were wearing training bras, I asked my mom if I could get one.  The answer was no.  I think one of my sisters told my mom, finally, that I needed a bra and then we went shopping.  I got your regular little girl bra with a little padding to give me some shape.  After that I was on my own.  It’s not that my mom didn’t care.  That’s not what this is about.  I really don’t think she knew how to talk to me so she chose not to.

   Throughout high school I bought my own; flimsy little silky things that didn’t cost much and did nothing for my figure.  When my daughter was born (and I had to have gotten a bra for that expanding time) my sister bought me the most comfortable bra ever and told me to sleep in it.  “You’ll ruin yourself if you don’t” is what she told me.  I don’t know whatever happened to that bra.  I know that I shrunk and it never would fit me again unless I got a boob job.

   Then came the day a friend and I walked into Victoria Secrets.  I actually got measured and bought a bra.  For fifty-some dollars but it fit.  It was a push up demi that made me look, for the first time in my life, like I had cleavage.  It was amazing!  I looked good, I looked a little busty!  Then I got a puppy.  And the puppy loved my bra.  Then one day he chewed it up.

   Now, I still have that puppy ten years later, and I love him dearly, but I’ve never forgiven him for that.  We don’t have a VS store near us and it’s a special trip and the price is so dear.  I went in at Christmas time but it was so busy and with the crowds I was just too anxious to even ask to get fitted.

    After the season I tried to do it myself and bought two bras.  I brought one back and the other one I kept, but I don’t wear it anymore because it made my breasts look misshaped.  I’m back to the black one.  It’s kind of hard because I’m avoiding wearing light colors and in the summer you just feel the need for white!  So I’m going to try again, although I’m not sure when.  I’ve got to call my friend and see if she’s up for a supportive road trip.

   To all the larger busted women out there please know this, manufacturers make bras for you.  Fashion runways may prefer my bra size (small to none), but the stores carry a lot for you ladies.  I’m stuck with sports bras – the training bra for grown women.  I’m looking forward to a good fit, even if it’ll cost me $60.  So wish me luck.  I know I’m not the only woman in the world with this problem, but sometimes it feels like I am.

   I’ve got to go.  My bra needs to be adjusted- again.