I've always been a little behind with new technology. I was one of the last people my age to get an e-mail address. I didn't get a cell phone until late and had to be prodded and pushed into blogging, Myspace and Facebook.
In truth, I've spent a lot of time on Facebook lately. It's been a real drain on my time. Part of the attraction is the superficial conversations with old friends that seems like you're really connecting, even when you're not. None of it gets into the grit of their lives. It's all status updates and personality quizzes. It's getting points for hiring hitmen or planting flowers. There's not a lot to it and I've had a great time using it as my own personal performance space.
But I think I'm giving it up.
An old friend from high school black listed me. It happened months ago. I only noticed today.
My history with this friend goes back a long ways. She was one of the smartest people I knew and an early encourager of my writing. Officially, she was the second person to ever tell me I should write and the first person to recognize I needed to.
We had a bit of a falling out our senior year. We stopped speaking. She went her way. I went mine and neither of us said anything to the other for fifteen years when I found her e-mail address. I sought her out. I tried to open up the lines of communication and it worked. Back and forth, we caught up some. We both talked about our jobs, our relationships and even our hopes for the future.
Things settled down a lot over time. She was a lot busier than me. She's a scientist, a researcher and a teacher. I'm just a scribbler, an odd jobber.
Everything got quiet between us sometime last winter and it was during those cold, dark months, she decided she didn't want anything to do with me.
The funny thing is I thought she'd just pulled the plug on the internet, on Facebook. It never occurred to me that she'd just pulled the plug on me --not until today, when I happened to notice her name attached to another friend's status update. It was in black and the picture was blocked.
I'd never seen it before and the realization of what she'd done hit me pretty hard. So hard, I didn't think, I just fired off an apology. Me annoying someone with something I've written has been done many times. It has sometimes led to litigation.
I wasn't looking for an explanation. I just wanted her to know I probably didn't mean any harm. She wrote back, told me it had nothing to do with offending her. She thought I'd misrepresented myself and my life. She accused me of being insincere, said she had no idea who I was, said she didn't think it was even possible for her to know because I seem to change depending on who I'm talking to. She didn't know me and maybe she never had.
I could see her point, at least partially. I am a man who blends in with crowds. I get mistaken for cousins, uncles and old friends from the neighborhood. This has been the way of things since I was ten. I have one of those faces, one of those voices. I am one of those people, but I have always believed my friends could see me for who I was, that even if I looked as common as a stone, they'd have some sense of the man I was.
I don't know I believe that right now.
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Resolutions 2015
- Don't Quit
- Make Plans
- Follow Through
- Take It Easy On Yourself
Still blogging
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- primalscreamx
- Like one of your real friends, only less likely to take your last beer.
8 comments:
As much as her decision to block you hurts, I hope it won't cause you to stop the Facebook crowd altogether. It doesn't have to be all or nothing, man. It can hit you hard and hurt like hell, and you can still continue your on-line relationships--however superficial--with others. Sometimes your status updates make my morning, along with a good cup of coffee.
I had a similar experience, where for one day I reconnected with a high school teammate. He deleted me from his list the next day, when he found out I'm a liberal atheist. He's a conservative law enforcement-type, and I didn't fit in any more with his world view. I did at 17, I didn't as an adult.
It hurt for a day, then I realized I was upset because I thought it was the 17 year old I was spurned by, not the adult. Hell, I don't even really know the adult...so, I let it go.
Hope you can too.
See this is exactly why I don't do Facebook or Twitter. I have a MySpace but I mainly use it to keep in contact with a couple of friends. Otherwise, I don't do any of the games or stuff. I'm on. I'm off. I'm done.
I figured between blogging, e-mail, and research (and Mah Jong and Scrabble in its many web forms) I spend too much time on the computer. I'm not joining more stuff.
But, that whole "I don't know who you really are" and blacklisting thing seems a bit harsh if you ask me. If time's made her an ass like that, good riddance and enjoy your time with the folks you have fun with on there.
Years ago, when I first started using IM, I quickly learned that people would be my friends to my face and stab the hell out of my back in another window at the same time. We called them "two talkers" because they would talk to you in one window for info and talk to someone else about you in another window.
I almost gave someone the boot recently for talking smack about me on Twitter because they knew I don't Tweet. Apparently they forgot to make their Twitter private so that people who don't Tweet can't read what they're Tweeting about you. I just blew it off and thought, "Thanks for the heads up that you can't be trusted to be straight up with me."
Perhaps the old blacklister should be looked at the same way.
Yeah, I think I've worked through the phases of loss. I was pissed. I was hurt. I tried to make a bargain with God --well, ok, maybe I skipped that one, but I did meditate for a long time and I listened to a Tift Merritt song over and over.
I came up with this: I'm a flawed guy. I have no idea what it was she saw that made her think I was anything other than what she expected me to be, but here's the thing: I'm comfortable with who I am, flaws and all.
It rattled me, but daylight makes things better.
The real reasons why she pulled the plug you may never know. Perhaps some external pressures on her end?
"She wrote back, told me it had nothing to do with offending her. She thought I'd misrepresented myself and my life. She accused me of being insincere, said she had no idea who I was, said she didn't think it was even possible for her to know because I seem to change depending on who I'm talking to. She didn't know me and maybe she never had."
That doesn't add up.
The real reasons why she pulled the plug you may never know. Perhaps some external pressures on her end?
"She wrote back, told me it had nothing to do with offending her. She thought I'd misrepresented myself and my life. She accused me of being insincere, said she had no idea who I was, said she didn't think it was even possible for her to know because I seem to change depending on who I'm talking to. She didn't know me and maybe she never had."
That doesn't add up.
It didn't make much sense to me. I can be kinda flighty, but I'm pretty much the same brand of rotgut regardless of mixer.
Maybe she liked me better when I was a stuttering 16 year-old who read lots of books about elves. He was a nice enough kid --even if his taste in music was a bit dodgy.
This may be harsher than it needs to be, only knowing one side of the story, but she sounds batshit fucking crazy to me. There's easier ways to remove someone from your Facebook feed - a dropdown menu with "hide" makes sure you don't see their gubbins or status updates on your feed. God knows how many times I've used that to get rid of people's stupid fucking Farmville updates, or the "Which 'Go-Go-Globetrotters' episode are you?" quizzes.
The fact that she blocked you suggests to me that she's got something to hide, bolstered by her classic deflecting. All she's got is she thinks *you're* misrepresenting *your* life? Really? And that's why she blocked you? Not just removed you, but BLOCKED? Nuh-uh. Bitch be crazy, and she's covering something up. I guarantee it.
Leave Facebook if you want - I must admit I'm almost at the point of getting rid of it myself - but don't think for one minute that her actions are a reflection on you, what you are, or what you say. It's the actions of a certifiable nutjob, indulging in certifiable nutjobbery, plain and simple.
By the way, Spike, which Go-Go-Globtrotter ARE you?
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