I can be blunt. I know it, my friends know it, and for the most part they accept it. A new book cover was posted on facebook not too long ago with a blurb beneath it. I liked the picture, I am acquainted with the author though she is better friends with someone I was better friends with and I read the blurb. I won’t quote it here, but it made no sense. Just like that. “The first sentence makes no sense.” In all candor, if I’d realized that she’d written it, I probably would not have said a word. I’ve found telling people their blurbs or their excerpts suck tend to have a negative effect, so usually I say nothing. I got the response I should have anticipated.A terse, it was about the picture, not the blurb.Did I mention I said sorry? Not about saying the blurb made no sense, but conventional wisdom says an apology was required so I did just that.
But it brings to the forefront another issue and that is being able to take criticism. Yes, I could have said, “Well, XXX,great picture, but I don’t know if the blurb works.” I mention this because a few days later, on another thread, there was another conversation about someone I care a great deal. I made mention of something and that was promptly attacked, by the above mentioned ‘author’ who took that opportunity to be bitchy and several other people. Now, I had by that point just thrown up my hands and said not my monkey,not my circus. But it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The author of the thread, with whom I’ve been friends for years, said nothing to stop the nasty comments.
The entire situation, which got completely out of hand, could have been diffused with two sentences:
“Thanks for caring, I’ll keep it mind, let’s move on.” and (to the other person) “Please don’t talk to someone who’s been my friend through good times and bad, I don’t appreciate it.”
See, the one who made the nasty remark,instead of saying something directly to me about my bluntness earlier, let it keep eating away at her and when this next thread came up, took that opportunity to take a pot shot. I went back and read my comments, to be sure I wasn’t being pedantic or obtuse and BAM epiphany! The author of the thread has the need to share everything. I don’t. You go to my facebook page and there’s not a lot. I just don’t overshare. Others do and that’s fine.Though to be honest, I don’t really need to know you went out and got drunk again and had a fight with the ‘rents at four in the morning or that your ex is sleeping with your best friend to live a happy life. If we’re friends, you’ll message me and say, You got a minute? I could an ear.
Then it becomes inconsequential, the drama. That’s fine. if you live for drama, Facebook is the place for it. And cat pictures. That being said, what it shouldn’t be for is the posting of no name comments because you don’t have the nerve to say something to the person’s face and open a dialogue to work it out. It shouldn’t be used to beat someone up with ‘anonymous’ comments. It shouldn’t be for talking about that person like they don’t exist, will never see the post. It should be about acknowledging that, hey, mistakes were made by everyone.
So, for me, the last straw was not being defended by a friend. I didn’t defend myself, because 1) it wasn’t my thread 2) I have a temper, a bad one and if I let it take over, it would be worse than bad. Banned from facebook bad. So instead, I withdrew with my hurt feelings and unfriended the author who made the nasty remark. Which worked, because I don’t think she liked me much after the the blurb makes no sense remark anyway. I needed to step back.i did however,send a message to someone (another friend for many years) to say thanks for hurting my feelings. She promptly unfriended me.
All righty then. Lesson learned. If you want people to not unfriend you, don’t disagree with them. Follow the party line and post cat pictures.
Yeah, that’s not gonna work for me. So now I have three less friends. Never mind that I was there with two of them through so many ups and downs, or that I was the one that they called when things were beyond ridiculously out of control. I won’t lie, it hurts.
That’s why this blog, because I’m trying to work through this hurt and because I don’t have any new cat pictures to post.
Except this one.
harperrush 
Pingback: The Pit that is Social Media | harperrush
Facebook posts are a passive-aggressive person’s dream landscape. I hate them for they are delivered in text and always open to interpretation based on past annoyance or hurts. People lie on Facebook, people exaggerate on Facebook, people are needlessly cruel on Facebook. In the shadowed valleys of the Facebook’s landscape, monsters lurk. Anonymity infects the least reasonable among us with a sense of power that causes them to post vitriol as if it were that nasty little alien bursting out of their rib-cage. Facebook is a place of transformation and mutation. The landscape of Facebook is populated by an unusual species who for some bizarre reason we refer to as “friends”. They group together in little covens called “groups” and these groups wage an emotional war on whoever falls short of their own puerile expectations, calling in favors and forming alliances and treaties as needed in order to wage war on some “friend” who has been wayward enough not to toe the “party” [Group] line. It is slander and emotional blackmail and espionage…it is the school yard…it is war. Did I say I hate Facebook posts? Facebook is the smoking and sordid battlefield left…littered with the ruins of real-life friendships and crushed possibilities. Facebook’s shadowed valleys are full of monsters… and the sad truth is the odds of finding a friend there…in the older sense of the word …is infinitesimal.There is no road map…there is no solid path, or stepping stones. Everything is a swampy and stinking terrain of half-truths and aggression. I know this is a long response, I know because when I post either a comment on a blog or a comment on Facebook, I go to great lengths to try to make my meaning clear. Sadly it sometimes doesn’t matter. So Facebook should come with a warning…”Abandon hope all you who enter here…”
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree. I remain on facebook because it is the easiest way to keep track of real friends, that I had before facebook and that I will have after facebook. Though I have to add a caveat and that is there are good souls out there, and though they are rare, they are true.
LikeLiked by 1 person
And it’s not that I don’t like a lively discussion of differences. It’s that whole “you agree with me or you are not a friend” thing that you are talking about.
LikeLike